Handmade Drawing Paper from Sugarcane Bagasse and Banana Fibre

Abstract

The growth of agricultural sector in conjunction with the expansion of human population has led to an increase in the generation of solid waste. The country's abundant supply of banana fiber and sugarcane bagasse fiber, which has little commercial value, offers a possible source of non-wood raw materials for paper production. Through recycling these waste products, the dependence on virgin raw materials and assurance on the environmental impacts can be minimize. In that scenario, this research focuses on the producing drawing paper, which is high demand in the market today by utilizing banana fiber (BF) and sugarcane bagasse fiber (SBF) with reassurance of paper quality using pH test, Paper wet test and Gram per Square Meter (GSM) test. Different types of handmade drawing papers materials were made which is BF, SBF. Others two drawing paper materials were made by chemically pulped using 10% CaCo₃ for          2 hours to formed CaCo₃-SBF and CaCo₃-BF. Different standard paper sizes; A3, A4 and A5 are formed by molding and ironed. Based on observation on the Paper Wet test proved shown that CaCo₃- SBF and CaCo₃ -BF formed a non-deteriorate and exhibited more stable in condition. CaCo₃-BF shown the lowest pH level followed by BF, CaCo₃-SBF and SBF. The GSM value for SBF showed a higher value than BF, with or without CaCo₃. Higher value of GSM indicating that SBF based papers are reliable for rough usage. However, for low value of GSM, the sample are more suitable to be used as tissue or wipes tissues.