• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.50-55
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• 2008

Recently, sea algae cultivation as carbon sink and carbon dioxide fixation have been considered. Also, various researches on bioenergy derived from sea algae and the utilization of fibers, saccharide, and lipid of sea algae have been performing. Till now, algae fibers has been used for manufacturing of paper and reinforcing of polymer composites and the extracts of sea algae are used for cosmetics, pharmaceutical materials and food such as agar. Especially, algae fiber has so similar properties to cellulose in terms of crystallinity and functional groups that it can be utilized as reinforcements of biocomposites. Biocomposites as alternatives of glass fiber reinforced polymer composites are environmentally friendly polymer composites reinforced with natural fibers and are actively applying to the automobiles and construction industries. In this paper, characteristics of algae fiber and biocomposites reinforced with algae fiber as environmentally friendly energy materials have been introduced.

• Journal of Korea Technical Association of The Pulp and Paper Industry
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.33-37
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• 2009

Hanji is a traditional Korean handmade paper, made of bast fibers of the paper mulberry. Its fiber furnish is much more expensive than wood fiber furnish. Hanji with a low basis weight requires additional opacity and smoothness for better writing and printing. Filler such as calcium carbonate can not be used to raise the opacity of Hanji because of its low retention in low basis weight paper and the high freeness of the Hanji fiber furnish. Addition of red algae pulp, which is prepared from marine red algae to the Hanji fiber furnish negated retention problems happening in the case of mineral filler addition, and produced a substantial improvement in the opacity and smoothness of Hanji. The higher retention was due to the much larger size of the red algae fibers compared to the mineral fillers. The improvement in opacity and smoothness were also due to the shape of the red algae fibers: that red algae fibers are narrower in widths and shorter in lengths than wood fibers results in increased surface area and smoothness.

• Proceedings of the Korea Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.93-102
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• 2007

Biocomposite was organized with biodegradable polymer and natural fiber that has potential to be used as replacement for glass fiber reinforced polymer composite with the benefits of low cost, low density, acceptable specific strength, biodegradability, etc. Until now, non-wood fibers have been used as reinforcements of biocomposite which are all plant-based fibers. The present study focused on investigating the fabrication and characterization of biocomposite reinforced with red algae fiber. The bleached red algae fiber(BRAF) showed very similar crystallinity to the cellulose. It has high stability against thermal degradation (maximum thermal decomposition temperature of 359.3$^{\circ}C$) and thermal expansion. Biocomposites reinforced with BRAF have been fabricated by a compression molding method and their mechanical and thermal properties have been studied. The storage modulus and the thermomechanical stability of PBS matrix are markedly improved with reinforcing the BRAF. These results support that the red algae fiber can be used as an excellent reinforcement of biocomposites as "green-composite" or "eco-composite".

• Journal of Korea Technical Association of The Pulp and Paper Industry
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.62-67
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• 2008

Biocomposite was fabricated with biodegradable polymer and natural fiber that has potential to be used as replacement for glass fiber reinforced polymer composite with the benefits of low cost, low density, acceptable specific strength, biodegradability, etc. Until now, mostly natural cellulosic fibers on land have been used as reinforcement for biocomposite. The present study focused on investigating the fabrication and the characterization of biocomposite reinforced with red algae fibers from the sea. The bleached red algae fiber (BRAF) showed very similar crystallinity to the wood cellulose. It has high stability against thermal degradation (maximum thermal decomposition temperature of 359.3$^{\circ}C$) and thermal expansion. Biocomposites reinforced with BRAF have been fabricated by a compression molding method and their mechanical and thermal properties have been studied. The storage modulus and the thermomechanical stability of PBS (polybuthylenesuccinate) matrix are markedly improved by reinforcing with the BRAF. These results indicate that red algae fiber can be used as an excellent reinforcement of biocomposites, which are sometimes called as "green-composites" or "eco-composites".

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.291-296
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• 1997

The dietary fiber contents of seaweeds including Drown algae (Undaria pinnatifida, Laminaria japonica, Hizikia fusiforme), red algae (Gelidium amansii, Gracilaria verrucosa) and green algae (Ulva lactuca) and the extraction condition of the fiber was investigated. The dietary fiber contents of Undaria pinnatifida, Laminaria japonica, Hizikia jusiforme, Gelidium amansii, Gracilaria verrucosa and Ulva lactuca were $47.2\%,\;50.7,\;42.6\%,\;48.8\%,\;44.5\%\;and\;40.0\%$, respectively. It was effective to extract soluble dietary fiber with sodium salts such as disodium carbonate and disodium EDTA in brown algae. In red algae, it was effective to extract soluble dietary fibre with disodium EDTA. Also, the extraction time and temperature affected the yields of dietary fiber.

• Proceedings of the Korea Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry Conference
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• 2008.04a
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• pp.178-182
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• 2008

The bleached red algae fiber(BRAF) showed very similar crystallinity to the cellulose, furthermore, it has higher thermal decomposition temperature than that of the microcrystalline cellulose(MCC). Polypropylene biocomposites reinforced with BRAF have been fabricated with various BRAF contents by compression molding method and their mechanical and thermomechanical properties have been studied. The mechanical strength as tensile, impact and flexural modulus of BRAF/PP biocomposites were gradually improved with increasing the BRAF content, and thermal property which against the thermal expansion was markdly improved, especially. These results are compared with chopped non-woody fibers as Henequen or Kenaf, BRAF was more effective for fabrication of biocomposites reinforced small-sized fibers. The red algae fiber reinforced biocomposites has the applicability such as electronics, biodegradable products and small-structure composites.

• Journal of Korea Technical Association of The Pulp and Paper Industry
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.16-23
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• 2012

Use of security papers for monetary papers, gift certificates, and lottery tickets increases every year. As the use of security papers increase, there are more possibility of counterfeits. In this study, we used unique fibers from the sea to increase the difficulties against counterfeiting. The red algae fibers give opacity as much as calcium carbonates, and have unique shape in length ($500{\sim}900\;{\mu}m$) and width ($1{\sim}4\;{\mu}m$) to be discerned from other natural fibers such as wood and cotton fibers. We mixed red algae fibers to wood fibers in a series of fixed ratios to make single and multiply papers for making security papers. Paper with dyed red algae fibers were also used. Paper made without fillers gave enough opacity for printing when red algae fibers were used more than 20% of the fiber furnish. Those properties may allow red algae fibers to be a potential candidate for fiber raw materials of security paper.

• Journal of Korea Technical Association of The Pulp and Paper Industry
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.15-22
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• 2008

For the improvement of letterpress printing paper quality, special fibers obtained from the sea were used by mixing with wood fibers. The sizes of the special fibers, which were from red algae in the sea, were 0.5-1 mm in length, and 3-7 ${\mu}m$ in width, respectively, and the fibers were supplied by Pegasus Research Inc. for the study. From the study, it was found that 10% addition of algae fibers greatly improved paper surface strength and internal bonding strength. The compressibility was estimated by utilizing 'Print-surf method' at high clamping pressure and with hard backing. Again, 10% addition of algae fibers greatly improved the compressibility of the paper. These results were expected that algae and wood fibers were distributed evenly through the sheet, and integrated one another to leave no empty space inside the paper.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.360-365
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• 2009

The dietary fiber and crude fiber contents of different thallus regions (blade, stipe, and holdfast) in three brown algae (Laminaria japonica, Ecklonia stolonifera, and E. cava) were detennined at different ages, and then compared with one another. On a dry matter basis, the soluble dietary fiber (SDF) content was highest ($10.8{\pm}0.5%$) in the holdfast of 2-year old L. japonica, and the insoluble dietary fiber (IDF), total dietary fiber (TDF), and crude fiber (CF) contents were highest in the holdfast of 2-year old E. cava at $44.5{\pm}0.7%$, $50.2{\pm}0.5%$, $6.8{\pm}0.7%$, respectively. The IDF, TDF, and CF contents of these three species were measured in the following order: holdfast > stipe > blade, and the SDF contents of L. japonica exhibited the reverse of this trend. The TDF/CF ratio of 1-year old L. japonica, E. stolonifera, and E. cava was greater than was observed in the corresponding 2-year old samples. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first report demonstrating that the holdfasts of L. japonica, E. stolonifera, and E. cava are rich in dietary fiber contents, especially IDF, TDF, and CF.

• Proceedings of the Korea Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry Conference
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• 2008.04a
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• pp.129-134
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• 2008

Properties of newly developed paper from Red Algae Pulp (RAP) were examined. The paper samples were prepared by mixing RAP fiber with wood fibers, HwBKP and SwBKP, to form a paper with $60g/m^2$ in weight. It was prepared in three to four different levels of refining degree and pressure so that it can reveal different bulk level in order to clearly compare the opacity at equivalent bulk for each furnish compositions. Printability of RAP fiber revealed superior effect on print through repression and initial ink absorption. Those properties are expected to improve further if printability improvement effect due to smoothness improvement is added.