28 



THE CUBA REVIEW 



PAPERMAKING FROM BAGASSE 



NOT A COMMERCIAL SUCCESS AT PRESENT SEVERAL ATTEMPTS 



DESCRIBED AN EXPERT'S OPINION 



The attempts to utilize bagasse have al- 

 most all been in the direction of paper- 

 making, and many efforts have been made 

 to perfect such a process, and to make it 

 a commercial success. The writer knows 

 of no single factory where papermaking 

 from bagasse is being carried on as a 

 commercial success. It is probable, how- 

 ever, that this fact is rather due to lack 

 of a proper methodical study of the prob- 

 lem, to the hurriedness with which half- 

 baked schemes are rushed into a commer- 

 cial scale, rather than to the impossibility 

 of the problem. In very many cases 

 failure has been due to local conditions, 

 or incompetent and ignorant management, 

 etc. 



A short description of the method used 

 in Texas might perhaps be of interest. 

 The crude bagasse (from the diffusion 

 process) contained 82 per cent water, 16.5 

 per cent crude cellulose, .75 per cent carbo- 

 hydrates, and .75 per cent ash. The megass 

 was allowed to ferment in heaps with fre- 

 quent watering, whereby the pectins were 

 destroyed. After this a charge of twenty 

 tons of the fermented substance was 

 boiled in a rotatory vessel with 950 pounds 

 dry soda and 250 pounds quicklime at a 

 pressure of 90 pounds to the square inch. 

 The pulp, after washing, went to the pa- 

 per machine. In this way a very strong 

 paper, suitable for wrapping purposes, 

 was said to be produced, and 20 per cent 

 of the original bagasse was given as the 

 yield of paper, which sold at 2 cents a 

 pound. This process was for some reason 

 a commercial failure. 



Many other attempts have been made 

 to convert bagasse into pasteboard paper, 

 and even papiermache, and other harder 

 material for barrel construction, etc. 

 These schemes, however, have always 

 been a failure economically. The most 

 hopeful direction in which work is being 

 done seems to be that of mixing bagasse 

 with comparatively large proportions of 

 other substances, such as para grass, wood 

 pulp, bamboo, etc. The most nearly, if 

 not quite successful, venture in bagasse 

 papermaking was on these lines, and is 

 being carried out at the Tacarigua estate 

 in Trinidad. Here the para grass and 

 bamboo and other grasses,- etc., are used, 

 and the value of the product is given at 

 $25 a ton. 



We may perhaps quote the opinion of 

 William Raitt, cellulose expert to the 

 India Provinces Exhiliition of 1910, on 

 this question. He says : 



"Cane sugar factories are usually situated 

 in localities where all manufactured goods 

 have to be imported at a considerable cost 

 for freight, etc., and probably import du- 

 ties also. Where such circumstances 

 exist, together with a sufficient local de- 

 mand for unbleached wrapping and pack- 

 ing papers, or even for the thin unbleached 

 paper so largely used by the natives of 

 India and elsewhere for correspondence 

 and accounts, it is quite possible that the 

 paper mill may prove a very profitable 

 auxiliary to a sugar factory and that the 

 bagasse may be worth considerably more 

 for this purpose than its present fuel 

 value." 



"A paper mill," he continues, "for this 

 class of paper, to produce 40 or 30 tons 

 per week, would cost roughly $100,000. 

 A conservative estimate of the cost of pro- 

 duction under average conditions, exclu- 

 sive of the fuel value of the megass, but 

 including repairs, depreciation and 5 per 

 cent interest on cost of plant, amounts to 

 $5.3 a ton. Under the conditions above 

 referred to, the product should be worth 

 $75, leaving $22 as the papermaking value 

 of the two tons of bagasse required to pro- 

 duce it, or say $10 per ton. The cost of 

 steam and coal to replace it in the sugar 

 factory furnaces would be at the outside 

 $7.50 a ton. In calorific effect a ton of 

 good steam coal is usually assumed to be 

 equal to four tons of bagasse, so that the 

 value of the latter as fuel cannot exceed 

 $2 per ton. Deducting this, there remains 

 an estimated profit of $S per ton of bagasse 

 converted into paper." 



It may also be remarked that the new 

 scheme of working up imported dried 

 shredded cane is said to yield bagasse in 

 a finely divided form, which is especially 

 suitable for paper making. This process, 

 however, is still in the experimental stage. 

 These are the only two possible uses of 

 bagasse which have up to now been put in- 

 to practice, as fuel and for paper making. — 



From a paper on ]>y-Products of Sugar-Mai<ing, 

 by Dr. William E. Cross, research chemist of the 

 Louisiana Sugar Experiment Station, delivered 

 April 19th before the .American Chemical Society. 

 Louisiana branch, and printed in the Modern 

 Sugar Planter, New Orleans. 



Credit is due Collier's U'cckly for the Review, of the funeral ceremonies at Wash- 

 beautiful illustration used in the April ington over the "Maine's" dead. 



