(533e) Exploring the Potential of Lantana Plant for Pulp Production in Indian Mills-An Experimental and Statistical Approach

Indian paper industry is passing through a crisis due to shortage of raw materials, high cost of energy, huge consumption of water and power and generation of large amount of pollutants. Among these all, raw material shortage is one of the major problems. Paper industries are always in search for possible non wood renewable raw material that can replace traditional forest based species like wood and bamboo. Lantana camara, a plant of Verbenaceae/ Vervain family, having 75.03% hollocellulose, 8.461%Extractive, 18.21% lignin and 2.31% silica can be a good raw material for paper making. In this work the potential of Lantana camara is evaluated for papermaking. The raw material is however renewable, new as far as availability of correlations are concerned to evaluate the results. In this paper a statistical model has been developed to predict the yield, kappa number, brightness and lignin content through statistical experimental design. In the present investigation kinetic experiments are also carried out and activation energy of lantana camara plant is determined. Using the experimental evaluated value of activation energy, kinetic model for delignification is developed. Both Vroom's and Jagannadh et al. H factors were determined. Further attempts have been made to develop relationship between kappa number and H factor through regression equations.