Botany · Ch 10 — Economically Useful Plants & Entrepreneurial Botany
Pulp Wood
Pulp Wood
The English word paper is derived from papyrus, the plant Egyptians used to make an early paper-like writing material, but true paper — made from the inner bark of the paper mulberry tree — was a Chinese invention of 105 A.D. The technique remained a closely guarded Chinese monopoly for centuries until Arab scholars learned and improved it around 750 A.D., after which the invention of printing dramatically increased demand for paper worldwide. Modern wood pulp is produced by breaking wood down through mechanical and chemical processes, using species such as Melia azadirachta, Neolamarkia chinensis, Casuarina species and Eucalyptus species. Beyond ordinary paper, purified 'dissolving pulp' is a basic raw material for manufacturing rayon (artificial silk), fabrics, transparent films such as cellophane and …
What this figure shows. A photograph illustrating the wood-to-pulp process described in the text — showing either logs of a pulpwood species (such as Eucalyptus or Casuarina) stacked ready for processing, or the resulting wood pulp itself: a mass of loose, wet, pale fibrous cellulose material after mechanical or chemical breakdown of the wood, before it is pressed and dried into paper sheets or further purified int …