Description:
The demands of used paper in Indonesia are increasing year by year. The data shown the
consumption used paper in 2005 reach 5,6 million ton, then increased significantly in 2009 around 6,45 million tons. This research is dealing with the investigation of banana pseudo stem waste as the alternative raw material to produce paper. This study utilized waste of
banana pseudo stem type Mahuli to analyze the effect of solution volume and banana pseudo stem mass ratio (L/kg), effect of chemical pulping temperature(oC) to the yield of pulp, determined the yield of pulp, grammature and moisture content of paper, and analyzed the morphology structure of paper. Clean of banana pseudo stem waste was reacted with NaOH solution in 60 minutes to produce pulp, then pulp was cleaned and
filtered. Pulp was printed using screen pulp and the pulp was dried. The variation of chemical pulping temperatures was 100oC, 110oC and 120 oC; and the ratio of solution volume and crops of banana pseudo stem waste was 2/1, 3/1, 5/1 and 7/1 (L/kg). The results showed that the highest yield reached in varied operation conditions were about 29,57-76,21%, the grammature and moisture content were about 83,83- 455,00 g/m2 and 4,67-22,67% respectively. The morphology of paper was more fibrous than the morphology of banana pseudo stem as raw material which effected by pulping process.