Papermaking aspects of five common varieties of sugarcane in Iran

The characteristics of five common varieties of sugarcane cultivated in the southern Iran, including cp57-614, sp70-1143, cp69-106, cp48-103, and nco310 were evaluated. The characteristics measured were fiber dimension, papermaking coefficients, fiber yield, density and chemical component. cp69-106 revealed the longest fiber with the average length of 1.55 mm whereas cp57-614 had the shortest fiber with average length of 1.39 mm. The cp48-103 and cp69-106 were ranked as having the widest and narrowest fiber diameter as 25.38 and 20.42 micron respectively. The measurement of the density at 12% moisture content showed that sp70-1143 with 0.35g/cm-3 provide the highest value and the cp57-614 possessed the lowest density measured at 0.17g.cm-3. There existed statistically significant differences among other fiber characteristics and papermaking coefficients. In general, the result indicated that cp69-106 provides the optimal characteristics in comparison with the other varieties based on papermaking specifications