New perspectives for Paulownia fortunei L. valorisation of the autohydrolysis and pulping processes

This paper will consider the influence of the temperature of autohydrolysis or hydrothermal process from Paulownia fortunei L. to obtain a valuable liquid phase and a suitable solid phase to produce pulp. The solid phase resulting of autohydrolysis was subjected to organosolv pulping process and formed paper sheets, analyzing the influence of operational variables (viz., ethanol concentration, temperature and pulping time) on the yield, viscosity, tensile index, burst index, tear index and brightness. Maximum glucose and xylose contents and minimum paper sheets characteristic loss have been obtained at 190 °C authohydrolysis temperature. Suitable characteristics of paper sheets and acceptable yield, viscosity and kappa number of pulp could be obtained by operating at 180 °C temperature, 30 min pulping time and 20% ethanol concentration. Under those conditions sheets paper with 27.4% ISO brightness, 28.87 N m/g tensile index, 1.22 kPa m2/g burst index and 1.23 kN m2/g tear index could be obtained.