Researchers Seek New Uses for "Black Liquor" (fwd)

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <london@metalab.unc.edu>]

Are any permaculture designers using kenaf?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 13:33:16 -0500
From: ARS News Service <isnv@ars-grin.gov>
To: ARS News List <ars-news@ars-grin.gov>
Subject: Researchers Seek New Uses for "Black Liquor"

STORY LEAD:
Researchers Seek New Uses for "Black Liquor"

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ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Linda McGraw, (309) 681-6530, lmcgraw@asrr.arsusda.gov
February 22, 2000
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Scientists with ARS and Vision Paper, Inc., of Albuquerque, New Mexico, have
rolled up their sleeves and dirtied their hands to find new uses for "black
liquor," a crude byproduct of pulping kenaf fiber. Twenty-five years ago,
ARS scientists at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research
Center in Peoria, Illinois, developed a process to turn kenaf into
newsprint.

Originally from Africa, kenaf is a renewable fiber crop closely related to
cotton. It reaches heights of 14 feet in less than seven months. Kenaf
stalks provide two to three times more fiber per acre annually than the
Southern Pine, a paper industry staple in the U.S. South. U.S. farmers can
grow kenaf in place of corn, soybeans, cotton, or rice.

Black liquor is usually burned for fuel or chemical recovery, but often
small paper mills can't afford expensive incinerators, according to new
crops research leader Thomas P. Abbott. Led by Abbott, the Peoria-based
research team, including one employee of Vision Paper, found that chitosan,
made from ground-up crab shells, helps turn the dissolved kenaf lignin into
a solid cake. The solid cake will be tested as an animal feed pellet binder.
The remaining soluble black liquor can be converted to a dry fertilizer that
has 22.2 percent nitrogen and is low in sodium. In the overall process,
black liquor is turned into salable products instead of greenhouse gases.

Abbott is scheduled to speak about this work at the meeting Kenaf Fiber for
the 21st Century, the 3rd annual conference of the American Kenaf Society in
Corpus Christi, Texas, Feb. 24-26.

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Scientific contact: Thomas P. Abbott, ARS National Center for Agricultural
Utilization Research, Peoria, Ill.,phone(309) 681-6533,
abbotttp@ncaur.mail.usda.gov.
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