Sustainable Solutions for Paper Production: Improving Paper Production by Recovering Wheat Straw

Papermaking has always been a prosperous industry, for the sake of the continued need for man to make paper despite technological progress and the development of current information media. However, the stationery industry suffers from a lack of raw materials. The search for new materials must consider protecting our natural plant fiber resources not to exhaust our ecosystems. With this in mind, we have sought to add value to agricultural byproducts. Thus, this project focuses on the possibility of recovering waste through the exploitation of wheat straw in the paper industry. Our results showed that wheat straw shanks' physical and mechanical characteristics are like those of esparto shanks. However, the degree of whiteness of esparto is significantly higher compared to that of wheat straw. This new format can be considered the starting point for a promising research path allowing better exploitation of wheat straw, which is widely used. Our results have shown that it is possible to make paper from it by slightly modifying the conditions used to make esparto sheets.