Non-wood raw materials for pulp and paper making. A review.

A bibliographic review has been made in order to obtain cellulosic pulp for paper, using non-wood plants. The main physical and chemical properties and the mainly processes are described in a serie of 160 references identifying the most promising alternative plants for papermaking. Non-wood plants offered several environmental advantages and gave suitable physical properties of paper sheets, which are directly comparable to some softwood and most hardwood species. Consequently, an increase of cellulose pulp production from non-wood plants could be predicted in the next decade.