Abstract
In general, the entire of paper mulberry bark, which is not cut into pieces with an appropriate length, have been used in the pulping. This kind of pulping method couldn't accomplish the improvement of beating and sheet forming efficiency. For this reason, we investigated the effects of the cutting length of paper mulberry bast fiber on pulping and Hanji (Korean traditional paper) properties, in order to develop high quality Hanji manufacturing process. The cutting length variation of paper mulberry white bast did not great effects on pulp yields. The pulp yields based on pulping methods were sulfomethylated pulping av. 57.4%, alkali-hydrogen peroxide pulping av. 55.4%, and alkaline pulping av. 53.5% respectively. The optical properties such as brightness, opacity, scattering coefficient, and absorption coefficient were slightly improved by the increase of paper mulberry white bast cutting length. The increase of paper mulberry white bast cutting length resulted in poor sheet formation. Physical properties such as breaking length, TEA, tear index, burst index, and folding endurance were slightly improved by the increase of cutting length. The modified pulping processes, which used sulfomethylated method and alkali-hydrogen peroxide method, showed better pulp and sheet properties than conventional alkaline pulping.