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International Conference on Informatics, Technology and Engineering IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 703 (2019) 012044 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/703/1/012044

Utilization of rice straw and used paper for the recycle

papermaking

N Suseno 1, T Adiarto2, M Sifra1 and V Elvira1

1
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Surabaya, Raya Kalirungkut,
Surabaya, 60293, Indonesia
2
Department of Chemistry, University of Airlangga, East Java, Surabaya, Indonesia

Email: [email protected]

Abstract. Rice Straw is one of the most important materials that has been used for pulp and
paper production due to its abundance and cost-effectiveness. However, the pulping and
papermaking characteristics of the mixture of rice straw and used paper have rarely been
investigated. In this experiment, delignified rice straw was mixed with used paper in order to
make recycle papers with acceptable properties. Soda pulping process was carried out to
remove out of lignin. The delignification was designed to measure the effects in terms of
sodium hydroxide concentration and temperature, on the cellulose and lignin content of rice
straw, and its tensile strength and water absorption. The mass ratio of used paper and rice straw
was varied and its physical properties was observed and compared to paper from natural rice
straw. The delignification was conducted using NaOH concentrations (4-10% w/w) and
temperatures (60-90oC) for 1 hour. The ratio of rice straw to used paper was varied (1:1-1:9).
An optimum condition was obtained from rice straw delignification at NaOH concentration of
8% and temperature of 90°C. The results of the optimum condition obtained the highest
amount of cellulose content and tensile strength while having the lowest amount of lignin
content and water absorption.

1. Introduction
In recent years, the three major problems that would continue to puzzle the development of the paper
industry are the shortage of resources, the contamination of the environment and the level of technical
equipment. The most dominating factor is the shortage of raw material resources, which is largely due
to the contradiction between the structure of the raw materials and the structure of the fibre resources.
Thereby, non-wood fibres possess a rich variety of excellent properties in physical and optical aspects,
which could be used to improve their products. Production of pulp from non-wood resources has many
advantages, such as easy pulping capability, excellent fibres for the special types of paper In some
developing countries, about 60-80% of the cellulose fibre comes from non-wood materials, such as
bagasse, rice straw, corn straw, bamboo, reed, grass, jute, flax, sisal, and so on [1]. Particularly, in
developing country such as Indonesia, the raw materials from non-wood plants are potential to be used
in fibre source for papermaking.
Indonesia is the third largest country in the world in producing rice. The total harvested area of rice
is 15,697 million acres and the production reaches to 81,073 million tons. The amount of rice straw
disposal as by products of paddy milling is 40.537 million tons, about half of total rice production [2].
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution
of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd 1
International Conference on Informatics, Technology and Engineering IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 703 (2019) 012044 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/703/1/012044

Rice straw is one of the most important materials that has been used for pulp and paper production due
to the high cellulose content. Rice straw contains 33-40% of cellulose, 24-28% of hemicellulose and
2-25% of lignin [3]. The production of paper is essentially a process of removing the lignin contained
in the fibre of raw materials in order to obtain a high cellulose content and low lignin content in pulp
or paper [4]. The soda process has been known to be the oldest and simplest pulping process. It is also
applicable to leafy and conifer wood and non-wood raw materials, such as agricultural residues [5, 6].
Research of papermaking rice with a variety of processes and additional raw materials have been
done by several researchers, among others: Influence of rice straw cooking conditions in the soda-
ethanol-water pulping on the mechanical properties of produced paper sheets [7], feasibility of rice
straw as a raw material for the production of soda cellulose pulp [5], two-step soda pulping processes
of rice straw for the recycle papermaking [8], pulping of wheat straw with caustic potash-ammonia
aqueous solutions and its kinetics [9]. The effects of sodium hydroxide content on mechanical and
physical properties of rice straw paper [10]. In spite of several studies in rice straw soda pulping, little
research has been conducted on the pulping and papermaking characteristics of the mixture of rice
straw and used paper or waste paper [11].
In addition, over the last decade, waste minimization, reuse, as well as material recycling have
received increased attention due to the governing waste management’s regulations and legislations in
both national and international scope. As secondary fibre resources, waste paper has an important role
to meet the demand of cellulose industries [12]. Waste paper which has been recycled is needed in
the process of papermaking, hence, the consumption of waste paper keeps increasing by year. This fact
has a positive impact of preserving virgin natural fibre to a great extent. The recycling process of the
conventional office paper reduces the abundance of waste paper. Moreover, after being cleaned and
reformed, used paper could be converted back into pulp. In this experiment, in order to obtain recycle
papers with desirable properties, rice straw was delignified with different NaOH concentrations at
different temperatures during soda pulping prior to mixing with office waste papers. The
delignification was designed to measure the effects in terms of sodium hydroxide concentration and
temperature on the cellulose and lignin content of rice straw, and its tensile strength and water
absorption to establish the optimum operating pulping conditions. The ratio of used paper mixture to
rice straw was varied in order to observe the physical properties (tensile strength and water absorption)
of recycle paper and compared with delignified natural rice straw paper.

2. Experimental

2.1 Materials
The materials include rice straw from Mojokerto, East Java, Indonesia, 95% NaOH (PT Chiwi
Kimia), 95% ethanol, benzena p.a, 72% sulfuric acid, and oxylic acid p.a

2.2 Soda pulping process

The wastes of rice straw were cut, milled, and screened prior to pulping. In the soda pulping process
of rice straw, various NaOH concentration (4, 6, 8, 10) %, delignification temperature (60, 70, 80,
90)oC were varied. Rice straw was delignified with NaOH solution with a ratio 1:17 (w/v) in a
laboratory flask for 1 hour. The resulting pulp was neutralized by washing with water. Delignified rice
straw was added with water and blended with motor stirrer in 300 rpm. The mixtures were poured into
a filter and pressed by water aided by a gravity force to remove out water. The resulting cake was a
sheet of paper which was then dried in the oven for further characterisations, such as the evaluation of
chemical composition (cellulose and lignin contents) and physical properties (tensile strength and
water absorption).

2.3 Papermaking process

Recycle paper was made by mixing delignified rice straw and used paper with a various mass ratio of
1:1, 1:3, 1:5, 1:7 dan 1:9. Waste paper was cut into small pieces, added with water, and then

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International Conference on Informatics, Technology and Engineering IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 703 (2019) 012044 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/703/1/012044

blended. Delignified rice straw was added with water and then blended before being mixed with
blended waste papers. The mixtures were poured into a filter and pressed by water aided by a gravity
force to remove out water. The resulting cake was a sheet of recycle paper which was then dried in the
oven for further physical properties characterisations (tensile strength and water absorption).

2.4 Paper characterizations

The evaluation of the chemical composition of pulp and paper was characterized chemically in
accordance with the applicable Indonesian National Standard (SNI), which are: cellulose (SNI 0444-
2009), lignin (SNI 0492-2008) as well as kappa number determination (SNI 0494:2008). Further for
physical characterization, such as the measurement of tensile strength and water absorption was
conducted. Tensile strength was measured using autograph (SNI ISO 1924-2:2010) for the water
absorption measurement with Cobb method (SNI 0499:2008).

2.5 Experimental design

In this experiment the relation of input variables and output variables were regression modelled using
a second order polynomial equation.
Y1= bo +b1. X1 + b2.X2 + b11 X12 +b 22X22+ b12. X1. X2 (1)
where X1 and X2 are independent or input variables, i.e. NaOH concentration, delignification
temperature. Yi (i = 1-2) is the response or output variables, i.e. cellulose, lignin content, tensile
strength and water absorption. bo is a constant, b1 and b2 represent the linear coefficients, whilst b11
and b22 are the quadratic coefficients, b12 is the interaction coefficients. The result of the physical test
was analyzed by statistics with 95% significance level. The software Microsoft Excel was performed
to analyze the results in the form of analysis of variance (ANOVA).

3. Result and discussion

In this soda delignification process, NaOH concentration, temperature was varied in order to obtain the
optimum condition. In Table 1, eight experiments conducted, together with the delignification process
conditions and their corresponding with chemical contents (cellulose and lignin) and physical
properties (tensile strength and water absorption).

Table 1. Delignification conditions and experimental results of pulping process

including cellulose and lignin content, tensile strength and water absorption
CNaOH T Cellulose Lignin Tensile Strength Water Absorption
(%) (°C) (%) (%) (N/mm²) (g/cm2)
4 90 74.22 5.48 2.14 195.67
6 90 76.84 4.78 2.70 195.03
8 90 79.49 3.96 4.36 193.58
10 90 74.58 4.18 4.18 191.03
8 60 71.66 10.78 1.08 253.96
8 70 73.18 10.16 1.13 220.62
8 80 74.78 9.67 1.18 190.98
8 90 79.38 4.58 3.92 185.67

Table 1 shows that for variations of temperature 60°C-90°C in a concentration of NaOH constant at
8% of the increasing temperature will increase the cellulose content followed by the decrease in the
lignin content in the paper resulted. The reason is the increasing of delignification temperature will
increase the rate of delignification in NaOH solution [9]. Thus, lignin will be more easily dissolved in

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International Conference on Informatics, Technology and Engineering IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 703 (2019) 012044 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/703/1/012044

NaOH. The highest cellulose of 79.38% and the lowest lignin of 4.58% were obtained at
delignification temperature of 90°C.
Tensile strength was generally influenced by the fibre length and molecular bonds. The longer the
cellulose fibres and the stronger of molecular bonds would be, the higher the tensile strengths of the
paper would be. The removal of the lignin in the cell will increase the molecular bonding between
cellulose fibres, thus it would increase the tensile strength. The higher concentration of NaOH used in
delignification, the more lignin could be dissolved and decreased the surface roughness. It indicates
that the paper has improved fibre structure with fine arrangement to each other, therefore it could be
able to improve fibre properties as well as strengthen bonds between the fibres [10]. However, the
possibility of the cellulose fibres degradation increases as NaOH concentration, the tensile strength
decreases at concentration of NaOH above 8%. The same trend was observed by the variations in
delignification temperatures. The increase in temperature would increase the delignification process so
it would increase the tensile strength, on the contrary, the water absorption would decrease. The lowest
water absorption reaches at 90°C.
The result of experimental data (Table 1) was fitted with a second-order polynomial model by
performing multiple linear regressions (equation 1). The results of the experiment have been
summarized in Table 2 and p-value presented in Table 3.

Table 2. Linear and non-linear coefficient resulted from the experimental design of dependent
variables (pulp composition and physical properties) according to equation (1)
Dependent Variables (Yi) bo b2 b12 b22 b1.b2 R2
Cellulose (%) 1.24 -1.4x10-2 -50.72 6.23x10-5 0.08 0.93
Lignin (%) -0.46 1.7x10-2 2.94 1.23x10-4 7x10-3 0.97
Tensile Strength (N/mm²) 41.81 -1.11 1.61x103 6.53x10-3 2.65 0.87
Water Absorption (g/cm2) 827.76 -14.50 2.51x103 8.49x10-2 -5.09 0.99

Table 3. p-value (α=5%) resulted from the experimental design of dependent variables (pulp
composition and physical properties) according to equation (1)
p value (α=5%)
Dependent Variables (Yi) Intercept X2 X12 X 22 X1. X 2
Cellulose (%) 0.03 0.74 0.03 0.31 0.03
Lignin (%) 0.10 0.99 0.74 0.03 0.62
TS (N/mm²) 0.12 8x10-10 0.14 0.13 0.12
WA(g/cm2) 9.6x10-3 9.8x10-10 0.69 0.03 0.60

Table 2 shows that all the dependent variables were high validity of model fitting with the
experimental (R2>0.9). According to p-value in table 3, it indicated that the independent variables to
dependent variables have significantly influenced when p<0.05. During the delignification process, the
concentration of NaOH in the quadratic function (X12) as well as the interaction between concentration
and temperature (X1. X2) on cellulose content has significant influence (p < 0.05). On the other hand,
the lignin content would follow the quadratic function of temperature (X22). Furthermore, the tensile
strength of the resulting paper follows the linear function of temperature (X2), while the influence of
temperature on water absorption follows the linear function (X2) and quadratic function (X22).
The effect of the ratio of used paper and rice straw (1:1, 1:3, 1:5, 1:7, 1:9) on tensile strength and
water absorption is presented in figure 1 and figure 2. Based on Figure 1, the tensile strength of
recycle paper decreases as the percentage of the used paper in the mixture increases. However, the
overall tensile resistance of used paper mixture with delignified rice straw was still greater compared

4
International Conference on Informatics, Technology and Engineering IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 703 (2019) 012044 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/703/1/012044

to natural delignified rice straw. Used paper contains fibril natural fibres, therefore when reformed to
the recycle paper, the paper strength will decrease. In the production of paper, the additive needed to
make the better performance of paper in term of physical or mechanical properties. During the
mechanical pretreatment process, the additive or filler could be removed and replaced by short fibre.
The more composition waste paper is used, it will decrease hydrogen bonds resulting to short cellulose
fibre source. The composition 1: 1 obtained the highest tensile strength is 8.65 N/mm², while the
tensile on natural delignified rice straw paper is 4.36 N/mm². The tensile strength of the recycle paper
from the mixture used paper and rice straw was compared to commercial paper. The tensile strength
obtained from the commercial standard of paper properties is 10.83 N/mm².

270

Water Absorption
255
Tensile Strength

{g/m2)
240
(N/mm2)

225
210
Ratio of used paper to rice straw 1 3 5 7 9
Ratio of used paper to rice straw

Figure 1. Effect of ratio of used paper to rice straw Figure 2. Effect of ratio of used paper to rice straw
on tensile strength on water absorption

In Figure 2, the more composition of used paper in the mixture will reduce the amount of water
absorption. It may be caused by the fact that there has been already a "sizing agent" additive on used
paper. This additive aims to make the paper more hydrophobic, therefore when paper is used for
writing, it can prevent excessive spread of ink.
The optimum pulping condition achieves using NaOH concentration of 8% at 90oC based on the
relatively the highest tensile strength and the lowest water absorption measured, i.e 8.65 N/mm² and
185.67 gr/m². This Kappa number determined at this condition was 4.5, which the kappa number
requirement white paper stock was less than 5. A lower kappa number means that less lignin remains
in the pulp, implying that more effectively than a pulp with a higher kappa number [13, 14]. The
corresponding measure tensile strength and water absorption commercial recycle paper were 10.60
N/mm2 and 45 gr/mm2 respectively. These recycle paper is suitable for writing/printing papers based
on SNI 14 0-937-2005. In order to achieve higher grade standard, several additives were still needed to
improve physical or mechanical properties in recycle paper.

4. Conclusion
This optimum condition was obtained from rice straw delignification at NaOH concentration of 8%,
delignification temperature of 90°C. The highest % cellulose and the lowest % lignin, tensile strength,
water absorption were achieved at this optimum condition, such as 79.49%, 3.96%, 4.36 N/mm² and
185.67 gr/m² respectively. For the variable mixture of rice straw and used paper, the highest tensile
strength was 8.65 N/mm² for a ratio of 1:1. The lowest water absorption was 218.03 gr/m² for a ratio
of 1:9. This investigation showed the potential of using the agricultural waste of rice straw and the
used paper for the recycle papermaking. The recycle paper has achieved the adequate properties
required for writing paper, however it would be more suitable if it is used as an art or wrapping
paper.

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International Conference on Informatics, Technology and Engineering IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 703 (2019) 012044 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/703/1/012044

Acknowledgment
The author wishes to thank Ms. Dyah Ayu Ambarsari for the technical assistance during the
experiments conducted at Polymer and Membrane Laboratory of Surabaya University, East Java,
Indonesia.

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