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With the increase in demand for wood and wood products, there is need to find alternative sources for the production of pulp and paper. Non wood plants have attracted interest due to their short growth cycles, moderate irrigation and fertilizer requirements and low lignin content. This study aimed at investigating the fibre characteristics of Agave sisalana for pulp and paper production. Leaves were collected from three sisal plant stands in Oyo State, Nigeria. The plant whorl was divided systematically into bottom, middle and top from which five leaves were randomly collected from each whorl position. The fibres of the leaves were extracted from which 2cm of fibres were taken from three positions on the leaf (top, middle and base). Extracted fibres were macerated and 3375 fibres were measured. The result shows that the fibre length of sisal increased with increasing length of the leaves from base to top with a mean value of 1.68mm. The fibre diameter and cell wall thickness averaged 16.98µm and 2.32µm respectively decreasing from the stem base to the top. The slenderness ratio averaged 99.4 while the coefficient of flexibility averaged 72.61. The highest value of the runkel ratio of Agave sisalana was 0.42. The fibres from sisal (Agave sisalana) leaves possess good fibre dimensions and derived values which will make it suitable for the production of high quality paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wood is versatile, inexhaustible and renewable. These made the wood an outstanding material used in different domain such as raw material for production of pulp, paper and fibre based products. In Nigeria, one of the problems in pulp and paper industry is inadequate supply of long fibre for paper production. Also, overexploitation of materials having desirable fibre characteristic was observed. Therefore, there is need to research into lesser known wood species so as to ascertain its suitability for paper making. This study presents the potential of Aningeria robusta wood as source for adequate fibres for paper making. Samples of 20x20x20mm were collected from the three trees of Aningeria robusta wood at different position; base (10%), middle (50%) and top (90%) along the merchantable height and prepared into slivers of 3mmx10mm for examination of the fibre characteristics. Thereafter, it was macerated and viewed under microscope. Further morphological indices were calculate accordingly. The mean fibre length, fibre diameter, lumen, cell wall thickness (CWT), slenderness, flexural ratio and runkel ratio were 1.55mm, 11.71µm, 8.78µm, 1.46, 132.12, and 75.07 respectively. Variation of indices along sampling heights were not significant except for CWT. A. robusta has shown good properties and could be added to already known wood species suitable for paper making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]