Wood Fiber Characteristics of Underutilized Poplar Species and Comparision with P. deltoides in Terms of their Pulp and Paper Quality

Abstract

The pulp and Paper industries are growing at a tremendous rate. To satisfy the raw material supply and sustainability of their future industries need an alternative resource from fast-growing tree species. Poplar is one of the world’s fastest-growing lightwood trees with its used in several industries. The present work relies on the comparative fiber morphological dimensions of four species of poplar i.e. Populus alba L, Populus ciliata Wall. ex Royle, Populus euphratica Oliv, and Populus nigra L. The quality of pulp and paper was directly related to the fiber dimensions i.e., fiber length, fiber lumen diameter, and fiber wall thickness. A number of wood properties related to paper quality were also derived from the fiber dimensions including the Runkel ratio, flexibility coefficient, solid factors, luce’s-shape factors, slenderness ratio and wall coverage ratio. The mean value of fiber length, fiber diameter, fiber wall thickness and basic density of these four species ranged from 919-1425 μm, 19.71-25.85 μm, 2.72-4.99 μm and 0.38-0.54 g cm⁻¹ respectively. The prominent objective was to compare the fiber quality of these four poplar species within among self and also with an exotic poplar species Populus deltoides and other fast-growing tree species.