Utilization of Pruned Branches from Lawsonia inermis (Henna) in Soda and Soda Anthraquinone Pulping

: This study aimed to evaluate the suitability of pruned branches of Lawsonia inermis (Henna) for soda and soda anthraquinone pulping to add economic value for this small tree (shrub). The investigations were carried out to determine fiber dimensions, morphological indices, chemical constituents, cooking trials were done with and without anthraquinone according to Technical Association of Pulp and Paper Industry (TAPPI). The short fiber of Henna (0.628 mm) compensated with wide fiber and lumen (83 µm) and (71 µm) respectively. The high lignin 28.8% and good cellulose 47% resulted in total yield ranged between 36.9-40.6%.


INTRODUCTION
Lawsonia inermis (Henna) family (Lythraceae), one of attractive plants for its multi-applications and uses [1][2][3][4][5]. Leaves are the parts take this attention and have great economical value due to medicinal, cosmetic and beauty applications [6][7][8][9][10]. Henna is distributed in subtropical, tropical areas and semi-arid zones in Africa and Asia, produced commercially in India, Iran, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Libya, Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan for its leaves [6, 11,12]. Henna growth has different soil and climate zones, deep sandy and clay soil, arid, tropical and warm climatic conditions [13][14][15]. Lawsonia inermis is branched glabrous shrub or small tree with greyish-brown bark Fig. 1: General features of Lawsonia inermis (Henna). (Figure 1), young branches are green and red when become mature. Leaves opposite, entire, elliptic to broadly extract considered as antibacterial especially against lanceolate, glabrous and acuminate; Flowers small and Staphylococcus aureus [25][26][27]. The main use of henna white [16][17][18][19]. especially in Asia and Africa is pigment and dye for skin Henna is used traditional medicine, in curing a lot and hair for women [9,28]. of diseases and aliments, burn wound infections [20] The production of pulp and paper from pruned skin diseases [21] the extracted oil used for inhibition branches of Henna seemed rare as not available in cancer cell lines [22,23] uterine diseases [24] henna previous literature according to authors' knowledge, the main objective of this work is to investigate the suitability of Lawsonia inermis (Henna) pruned branches for pulping with soda and soda anthraquinone methods.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The small trees (shrubs) of Lawsonia inermis (Henna) were pruned in Alobeid city, the capital of, north Kordofan state in October 2018. About thirty three kilograms of these pruned branches were collected. The random selection was applied according to TAPPI standards 2002 [29]. The area characterized with sandy loam soil and low annual rains 200-800 mm. The pruned branched were packaged in bags, transported by bus and Fig. 2: Fibers of Lawsonia inermis (Henna) pruned stored in National Centre of Research in Khartoum for branches under magnification (40X). preparations and analysis. The dried branches were chopped into 4-6 cm length.
Fiber dimension evaluation was done in College of Applied and Industrial Sciences, University of Bahri. The prepared chops were macerated according to (TAPPI-232cm-01), with a mixture of acetic acid and 30% hydrogen peroxide (1:1), the fibers were measured microscopically at 300x and 400x magnifications of 25 fibers after staining with aqueous safranin (Figure 2). The morphological indices were determined.
The determination of the chemical components of Lawsonia inermis (Henna) pruned branches were carried out according to Technical Association of Pulp and Paper Industry (TAPPI standards) except for Kurchner-Hoffer cellulose which done according Obolenskaya et al. [30] as mentioned in Table 1.
Due to lack of previous data on pulping of Lawsonia inermis (Henna) pruned branches, the research team decided the conditions according to the chemical constituents, the maximum temperature was kept constant 170°C, time at maximum temperature was 90 min, time to maximum temperature was 60°C. The liquor to wood ratio was varied 4-6 and the applied chemical charge was also varied 16-18% as NaOH on oven dry wood. The addition of anthraquinone was done in small quantities for one trial equal to 0.5% on oven dry wood as presented in Table 4. The cooking was done in 7l electrically heated digester with forced liquor circulation. The pulps were cleaned with water to remove the black liquor and impurities, screened to determine rejects and screened yields (as oven dry percentages), the total yields were calculated by adding rejects to screened yields. The disintegrator was applied to separate the accumulation of fibers at 1200 rpm for 30 min. Beating with Valley beater intervals zero, 5 and 10 min to study the quality of pulps according to     (Figures 3-6). Tensile index and breaking length were increasing with increasing of beating and soda-AQ pulps had the best tensile index and breaking length due to the preservation of hemicelluloses during cooking especially stable xylan resulted in good pentosans, improved the beating by imbibe water inside the fibers (Figures 3 & 4). Burst index ( Figure 5) had the same pattern of tensile