Page 11 - Cannabis&Hemp Industrial-Hemp-Brochure

Stalk: Paper Products

Hemp paper from the stalk can be used for printing, newsprint, packaging, cardboard, and other paper products.
Paper products can be made of the long bast fiber or the hurd (or pulp). The different parts of the stalk may have
different applications. The fiber bast paper has been reported to be thin, tough, brittle, and rough while the hurd has
been reported to be thicker, easier to make, not as strong, with more daily applications. Depending on the source of
information, dried hemp has been reported to have between 50-85% cellulose, the main ingredient in paper, while
trees are in the 30-50% range. Therefore, the other 50-70% of chemical compounds from trees are required to be
removed. Relatedly, hemp has lower concentrations of lignin, which must be removed during the process of making
paper products. The lignin concentrations are 5-24% and 20-35% for hemp and trees, respectively. Hemp paper can be
bleached with hydrogen peroxide instead of toxic chlorine or dioxin chemicals used with paper from trees.

Hemp reaches maturity in 3-4 months while trees require 20-80 years and has four times more fiber than a forest using
the same land mass. Thus, hemp paper can be produced at a much faster rate. It also has been reported that hemp
paper products can be recycled eight times, while tree products can only be recycled less than half the number of times.

While on-line sensors may be available to measure some production
parameters, lab scale method development may require laboratory
instruments. Some parameters measured are weight, moisture profile,
ash content, color, brightness, smoothness, gloss, coat weight, formation,
porosity, fiber orientation, surface properties, tear strength, and opacity.
For example, Shimadzu’s EZ-X could be used for determination of breaking
strength, breaking length, tearing strength on the long and short side,
elongation, fold resistance and more. Shimadzu offers analytical, top loading
and moisture balances for weight and moisture profiles.

In the paper industry, coatings, fibers, fillers, sizing agents and other items
affect a paper’s properties, such as brightness, color, gloss, and opacity.
Shimadzu’s SALD-2300 particle size analyzer is ideal for this application with
a measurement range of 17 nanometers to 2500 microns. Shimadzu EZ-X Universal Tester tearing paper

SALD-2300 Particle Size Analyzer
100
80
Shimadzu MOC63 Moisture Balance. General Balance Brochure.
Download the brochure or request a Download the brochure
60
printed copy using code C054-E067B. or request a printed copy
40 using code C054-E032T.
20
0
0.01 0.05 0.1 0.5 1 5 10 50 100 500 1000 5000
Example of particle size distribution (um)

Analytical & Testing Solutions for Industrial Hemp 11