Crop stalk is a general term for the stems and leaves (ears) of mature crops.

Usually
refers to the remainder of wheat, rice, corn, potato, canola, cotton, sugar cane and other
crops (usually coarse grains) after harvesting the seeds. More than half of the
photosynthesis products are found in straw, which is rich in nitrogen, phosphorus,
potassium, calcium, magnesium and organic matter. It is a multi-purpose renewable
biological resource.

As the by-product of crops, the main treatment is incineration. Straw burning was once
regarded as the main cause of air pollution, which also caused a serious waste of
resources. The utilization rate of straw resources is greatly reduced. It can be seen that
the reuse of crop stalk is an important way to reduce environmental pollution and
improve the utilization of straw resources. Common applications of crop stalks
include wood pellet plant, activated carbon plant, and etc. Among all uses of crop
stalk, pulp of crop stalk is typical and cost-effective.

The demand for crop stalk pulp

China has abundant agricultural resources, and the proportion of straw is large. In
China’s paper and pulp industry, the shortage of raw materials for paper making is
always a problem, as the main raw material for papermaking. China’s wood fiber
resources are relatively scarce and need to rely on imported wood pulp. The shortage of
fiber materials limits the development of China’s paper industry. Therefore, choosing a
suitable papermaking raw material to replace wood raw materials is a major research
topic in the paper industry. There are some common non-wood fiber materials like
wheat straw, bamboo, sugarcane bagasse, cotton, jute and waste paper, etc.

The pulp of crop stalk

The new biodegradable pulping technology uses agricultural waste such as straw, corn
stalk, wheat straw and cotton stalk as raw materials, and uses various specific
microorganisms as inoculants, through engineering treatment and biological
fermentation process, decompose and oxidize lignin, hemicellulose, etc. and the
cellulose therein is separated and applied in the paper industry.

Currently, some paper pulp mill has successfully explored the use of straw, and
achieved the “one grass and two uses”, and solved the problem of straw burning by the
market. The so-called “one grass and two uses”, one is to use the straw to make paper,
the key index of the straw pulp is better than the hardwood pulp, and change the
situation that the straw pulp can only be used for low-grade products such as cardboard
paper. The straw pulp also can be used to produce cultural paper, household paper,
etc. The second is to refine the main pollutants in the papermaking process to produce
fulvic acid organic fertilizer, which has been applied in 40 million mu of cultivated land in
China. According to estimates, a new-type pulp plant that processes 1 million tons of
straw per year can save the straw on 4 million mu of cultivated land from incineration.

Crop stalk includes the stalk of wheat, rice, corn, potato, canola, cotton, sugar cane,
and etc. corn stalk is a typical fiber material for papermaking. How to make pulp from
corn stalk?

Cornstalk pulp making

The corn stalk is composed of skin, stalk, and leaf in a certain proportion. Table 1
shows that the total amount of stalks and leaves is more than 60%, and the amount of
skin is less. The amount of ingredients contained in each part is different. As shown in
Table 2, the stalk contains more lignin than skin. A large amount of lignin can lead to the
reduction of fiber strength and yellow color of pulp, which will affect the mechanical
properties and whiteness of the paper. The protein, fat, starch, sugar and the like are
higher in the stalk, and the obtained pulp is not ideal and relatively viscous. The crop
stalk contains the small amount of lignin and high specific content of cellulose, which is
not much different from the cellulose content of wood. So that corn stalk can be used as
a good raw material for papermaking.
 Part Leaf Skin Stalk

Quality Fraction(%) 49-53 30-35 15-16

table1
component concentration lignin cellulose ash

skin 16.15 67.22 0.46

stalk 23.07 71.43 0.46

table2
Due to the difference in the chemical composition of the skin and the stalk, we
separated the skin from the stalk and make paper. Table 3 compares the chemical
composition of corn stalk and other crop by-products. According to the data, it can be
concluded that corn stalk can be used as a great fiber material for papermaking. But the
straw skin is smooth and tough, block the extraction of fibers. This layer contains
substances such as hemicellulose, pectin, water-soluble matter, paper wax and etc. To
disperse the fibers, it is necessary to pretreat to remove this layer of material.
 materials Moisture (%) Ash (%) Cellulose (%) Pentosane(%) Lignin (%)

Cornstalk 9.6 2.97 44.69 20.58 16.56

reed 14.13 2.96 43.55 22.46 25.40

Wheat straw 10.65 6.04 40.40 25.56 22.34

Sorghum stalk 9.43 4.76 39.70 24.40 22.52

Rice straw 9.87 15.5 36.20 18.06 14.05

table3
According to the above analysis, the suitable method for corn straw papermaking is to
pretreat the corn skin, use pulp digester to extract the fiber by pulp cooking, bleach the
pulp to meet the requirements of whiteness, and refine the fiber by beating. Through
this series of processes, the qualified paper can be produced.

Non-wood fiber papermaking is gradually becoming a major trend. Applying corn stalks
to the paper industry not only can alleviate the shortage of resources, but also make full
use of straw resources, greatly reduce the pollution of straw burning.