Potential Advantages of Very Short Fiber Adjacent to Small Vessel in Acacia mangium for Producing Paper

Article History"In Acacia mangium wood, fibers located adjacent to vessel elements are notably shorter and are referred to as 'very short fibers' to distinguish them from the longer fibers found further away from the vessels.Variations in fiber length are determined by the size of the vessel and the arrangement of the rows.The objective of our study was to determine the variation in fiber dimensions based on their distance from small vessels in the tangential direction.We also compared the quality of fibers based on their distance from small and large vessel cells as raw materials for paper production.Wood blocks measuring 10mm x 5mm x 20mm (R x T x L) were softened, sliced, and photographed using a confocal laser scanning microscope.Serial sections were aligned using Reconstruct software.Fiber length was obtained by multiplying the section thickness (25m) by the number of cross sections in which the focused wood fibers appeared in the ImageJ software.Fiber diameter and wall thickness were measured both perpendicular and parallel to vessel enlargement.Length and lumen of the first two very short fibers adjacent to a small vessel in the tangential direction were significantly shorter and wider than those of more distant fibers.Very short fibers adjacent to small vessels in both directions had lower RR, MR, and RC values, and higher FR values, compared to distant fibers.Conversely, for very short fibers adjacent to large vessels in the radial direction only, RR, MR and RC values were higher and FR values were lower.