Chemical Composition and Pulping of Tunisian Almond and Fig Stems – A Comparison with Tunisian Date Palm Rachis

Chemical Composition and Pulping of Tunisian Almond and Fig Stems – A Comparison with Tunisian Date Palm Rachis

Ibtissem Moussa, Ramzi Khiari, Ali Moussa, Mohamed Farouk Mhenni

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Abstract. In the present paper, the main objectives of this paper are the characterization of two Tunisian cellulosic by-products (almond and fig stems). The first part of this work is devoted to the determination of the chemical composition. Their chemical composition was showed that they present amounts of holocellulose, lignin and cellulose similar to those encountered in Tunisian date palm rachis. In the second part of this paper, the ensuing pulps of almond and fig stems are characterized in terms of degree of polymerization, fiber length and fiber width. These properties were compared to the properties of a Tunisian date palm rachis that was fully characterized by Khiari et al. (2010). Finally, the results of this work clearly demonstrated that almond and fig stems can be considered as a possible alternative source of fibers for cellulose derivatives and/or as lignocellulosic fibers for fiber-reinforced composite materials or papermaking application.

Keywords
date palm rachis, almond stems, fig stems, cellulose fiber, characterization

Published online 4/20/2019, 7 pages
Copyright © 2019 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA

Citation: Ibtissem Moussa, Ramzi Khiari, Ali Moussa, Mohamed Farouk Mhenni, Chemical Composition and Pulping of Tunisian Almond and Fig Stems – A Comparison with Tunisian Date Palm Rachis, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 11, pp 286-292, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644900178-24

The article was published as article 24 of the book By-Products of Palm Trees and Their Applications

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.

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