Chapter 2058 Bagasse Paper?

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Tara's sugar ship brought back 200 tons of sucrose. At the same time, he also brought back a few tons of paper, saying that it was dedicated to Marin to see if it could be of great use.

"Damn it, paper made in Cuba?" Marin held his forehead, it seems that it is not impossible. Cuba, after all, is full of wood. But the problem is, Cuba has no coal. Could it be, burning wood to cook wood? What a waste...

You must know that in European countries, the centuries-old oak has become a controlled thing, and civilians cannot cut it at will. And in Cuba, if you burn wood to cook pulp...it's not right, Cuba is now a place full of virgin forests, and there is indeed no shortage of wood...

But after getting the paper, Marin found something wrong - this paper looks rough, but it is very thick...

"This... is a bit like kraft paper..."

Kraft paper is very thick, paper as thick as cowhide. Generally, kraft paper is used to make packaging paper bags. For example, kraft paper used in cement bags.

Sure enough, the instruction manual attached to Tara's letter said that this kind of kraft paper can be used to make packaging bags. It can also be sent to Newfoundland, soaked in whale oil and processed into moisture-proof kraft oil paper, which is used as a packaging bag for important materials.

Of course, none of this surprised Marin. What surprised Marin the most was that Tara explained that these kraft papers were made of bagasse!

Paper from bagasse? It's a bit high-end...

It seems that later generations of Marin have indeed heard of the use of bagasse to make paper. It is said to be beneficial to the environment. After all, bagasse is not easy to degrade and cannot be used as green fertilizer. The main reason is that bagasse is mainly cellulose, which is not easy to degrade and digest, and the degradation speed is relatively slow. As people often say in later generations, fiber vegetables are difficult to absorb and digest, but it is easy to feel full.

In later generations, bagasse would be an easy solution. Difficult to break down, right? I use a pulverizer to grind it thoroughly into powder, so it can be easily degraded into bio-fertilizer.

But in this era, there is no high-speed pulverizer, and the fiber of bagasse is best not to be thrown away. Burning it as fuel is a good choice. The grass ash obtained after burning is actually a good green manure.

Originally, the sugar cane and bagasse in the Cuban colony were also used as firewood for burning. But all this changed after a craftsman arrived...

The craftsman was named Keller, a German. Originally, Keller was a paper craftsman at a paper mill on Cape Breton Island. But more than a year ago, a work accident caused Keller to break his right leg. after disability,

Keller was no longer able to work at the Cape Breton Island paper mill. Originally, he wanted to go back to his hometown of Cologne for the elderly, but Garland, the governor of Cape Breton Island, disagreed. After all, Cologne is the base of the Archbishop of Cologne. What if Keller goes back and leaks Beihai's wood-based papermaking technology?

Coincidentally, Keller's son Keller Jr. (the father and son both have the same name) was taken by Tara to work as a sugarcane plantation manager in the Havana colony in Cuba. Therefore, the old Keller simply went to his son to take care of him.

After arriving at the Cuban sugar cane plantation, the old Keller also spent a leisurely retirement time at the beginning. But after that, things got bad.

why? Because there is no one to play with him!

If a group of retired old men and old ladies play together like in later generations, it would be comfortable. But where is Cuba? It was a colony that had only been developed for more than ten years. Most of the people who came were young people, almost no old people. Therefore, the old Keller could only see his son after work every night.

Because of loneliness, old Keller simply wandered around on crutches. Just in time, he saw the slaves drying the bagasse. When I asked, they said they were going to be dried in the sun and burned as firewood.

But Old Keller, a paper craftsman, had an occupational disease. He twisted the bagasse by hand and found that it was full of fibers.

"Maybe...it can be used to make paper..."

Just do what you say, and his son Keller Jr. is the steward of the plantation, so he has a lot of power. Then, the old Keller took several black slaves assigned to him by his son, and started the research on making paper from bagasse.

He first asked a blacksmith to help him build an iron pot with a sealed lid. Then, use the obtained Egyptian Glauber's salt, mix it with bagasse, put it in a sealed iron pot and boil it fiercely.

After the pulping was completed, he copied it himself. Then, finally got the paper.

Unfortunately, the first batches of paper seem to have poor toughness and break easily. With a slight tug, it broke...

Old Keller was not reconciled, and began to observe the bagasse. After a long time, he discovered that the fibers of bagasse are long and short. The long one is suitable for paper making, and the short one is not so suitable. Even if it is made, it is easy to break.

In order to prove the conjecture, he separated the long and short fibers in the bagasse, and boiled the pulp separately to make paper. Then, as he guessed, the paper made of short fibers is very easy to break. The paper made of long fibers is much stronger. However, it is still worse than paper made from wood pulp. After comparison, Old Keller found that, it seems, the long fibers in bagasse are also a little shorter than ordinary wood pulp fibers...

Then, old Keller thought of a way - simply, I used the long fibers in bagasse to make thick kraft paper. In this way, the problem of slightly shorter fibers is covered up by the thick structure...

In the end, the kraft paper produced by Old Keller was indeed of acceptable quality. The most important thing is - the cost is low!

You know, bagasse in Cuba is garbage that can be seen everywhere, and it is used as grass to burn. How much bagasse is there? It makes up about a quarter of the weight of sugar cane. In other words, there are about 250 kilograms of bagasse in one ton of sugarcane.

After using manure, the Cuban sugarcane yield is about 2 tons per mu. In other words, one mu of land can produce 500 kilograms of bagasse, which is one thousand catties!

Of course, less than half of the long fibers are suitable for papermaking. However, the old Keller used wet screening, which could only screen out longer fibers, which accounted for 30% of the total.

But even so, 300 jin of long fibers can be screened out of 1,000 jin of bagasse per mu of land. Cuba has already reclaimed 100,000 mu of sugarcane land. In addition, another 100,000 mu are under reclamation and planting.

In this way, even if only 30% of the bagasse can be used, 100,000 mu of sugarcane land can get 30 million catties, or 33 million pounds! If it can be made into kraft paper, you can get 24.75 million pounds of kraft paper with a 25% discount! With so much paper, the entire Beihai country can't run out of paper bags!

The other 70% of the bagasse left after being screened is not waste. After drying, it can be used as fuel to help boil sugarcane juice and refine sucrose. It can also be used to boil pulp and help make paper. It can be said that there is no waste!

Of course, limited by manpower, it is impossible to use all the bagasse in Cuba to screen and make kraft paper. However, it is still possible to take out a considerable part.

Old Keller's invention has aroused Tara's great attention. why? Because Tara also wants to make meritorious service and earn performance!

His achievements in Cuba are not easy to establish. Before planting sugar cane, tea trees, rice and fruits, etc., they were all done according to Marin's instructions, and there was nothing he could do.

Now, under his rule, there have been good projects that Marin did not expect, and he is naturally willing to support them vigorously, so as to show his wisdom and insight as the governor.

Then, a batch of kraft paper made of bagasse was sent back to the mainland along with the sugar, and given to Marin Yulan.

Sure enough, Marin was very happy after getting his hands on the batch of bagasse-made paper. After all, it is indeed quite wasteful to copy the fine pulp made of lumber on Cape Breton Island into kraft paper. And using bagasse to make kraft paper is not wasted.

However, kraft paper alone is not moisture-proof. Therefore, an equivalent part of the kraft paper made from Cuban bagasse is sent to Newfoundland, where it is soaked in whale oil and processed into moisture-proof kraft oil paper. Then, it can be applied to various packaging bags.

For the innovative behavior of old Keller, Marin was not stingy and rewarded him with a thousand gold coins. Moreover, in order to show generosity, Marin also bestowed on the old Keller a title of nobility for life. Of course, it is not the Grand Duchy of the North Sea, but the Kingdom of America. After all, Cuba is within the scope of the Kingdom of America...

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