Resumen

TURRADO, José; SAUCEDO, Alma R; SANJUAN, Rubén  y  SULBARAN, Belkis. RACHIS of Muse balbisiana and Muse acuminata as Source of Fibers for Paper Structure. Inf. tecnol. [online]. 2009, vol.20, n.4, pp. 117-122. ISSN 0718-0764.  doi: 10.4067/S0718-07642009000400013.

This work presents an alternative of industrial use of the banana rachis (the woody center of the cluster of bananas), as source of fibers for the structure of paper. Banana rachis is considered to be an agroindustrial residue in producing countries of banana it represents 2.8 % of the cluster of Muse balbisiana and 4.4 % of the cluster of Muse acuminata. The physical and chemical structure of the rachis is almost simliar to that of the sugar cane so a chemical process similar to that employed to obtain fibers from the sugar bagasse cane was used. An experimental factorial design that allows the correlation of independent variables (cooking time, reagent concentration) in four levels with response parameters (yield, reagents consumption, rejects and residual lignin) was adopted. The rachis of Muse acuminata needs lower temperature and less reagent consumption to liberate fibers in comparison with the rachis of Muse balbisiana. Therefore yield of the fibbers from Musa acuminata is major than that of the fibbers from Musa balbisiana.

Palabras clave : banana rachis; lignin; cooking time; Muse acuminata.