Types of Pulps

Cotton: cotton pulp is produced from the short seed hairs of the cotton plant. The longest cotton fibres are used by the textile industry and the shorter fibres are used for papermaking. The longer the fibre, the stronger the paper, so paper made from old cotton rags is actually of excellent quality. Cotton produces soft, bulky, high quality paper.

Wood: More than 95 percent of the world's paper is manufactured from wood. Various kinds of trees are used to make wood pulp today. The type of wood determines the paper's final characteristics. For example, softwood trees have longer fibres and make fairly strong paper, whereas hardwood trees have short fibres, giving paper bulk and body. There are two kinds of wood pulp:

1. mechanical pulp is produced from logs that are ground to the consistency of sawdust. This results in very short fibres and many impurities, including the lignins (the polymer that holds tree fibres together). This causes the paper to be weak and to yellow rapidly.
2. chemical pulp is produced by cutting the wood into small pieces and subjecting it to a chemical bath. This process removes the lignins and resins, resulting in a pulp with longer fibres.

Flax and Linen: The flax plant yields the fibres for linen cloth; the short fibres not needed for cloth production can be used to make paper. Linen paper is made from linen rags that are ground in a beater. This produces very high quality paper.

Hemp: This plant (Cannibis sativa) has a very high cellulose content and makes one of the oldest true papers, first used in China in the 1st century CE.

Other popular materials: Abaca (Manila Hemp), Kenaf Fibre, Japanese Kozo, Thai Kozo, China Kozo, Japanese Gampi, Philippine Gampi, Mitsumata.

More on how paper is made

• From Plant to Pulp
• Types of Pulps
• Forming a Sheet of Paper
• Additives in Paper



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