Chemical composition and pulp properties of alfa (Stipa tenacissima)

Abstract

The paper analyzes the chemical composition of Alfa (Stipa tenacissima) plant growing in Algeria and Tunisia. The amount of polysaccharide complex and that of lignin were found to be close to that of softwood, i.e., of 70 and 20%, respectively, yet the amount of ashes and extractives were relatively high. The lignin structure, characterised by FTIR and NMR spectroscopy, showed that the lignin macromolecules are of the hydroxy guaiacyl syringyl (HGS) lignin type. Soda bleached pulps from Algerian plants, subsequently characterised in terms of morphology, showed that fibre length and width values were around 0.8 mm and 20 μm, respectively. The coarseness of these fibres was also determined, and found to be around 0.11 g/m, whereas their average value of kink angles was of about 133°.