Measurement of Fiber Hornification Using High Resolution Thermogravimetric Analysis

摘要

Fiber hornification was evaluated by a parameter termed ‘hard-to-remove (HR) water content’, which wasrndefined as the ratio of water mass to fiber mass at the transition between the constant rate zone and the falling rate zone from the isothermal TGA experiments. The results indicated that the HR water content could be used as arnmeasurement technique for fiber hornification, showing a close correlation with the WRV over repeated wetting andrndrying cycles. As expected, fully bleached kraft pulped fibers demonstrated a much larger decrease in HR waterrncontent upon experiencing multiple wetting and drying cycles than did mechanical pulped fibers. In addition, thisrnthermogravimetric analysis could be used as a convenient and insightful characterization technique for fiber-waterrnsystem and allows for the direct comparison of fibers at small amount of sample size, about 10 mg of dried mass.