Unusable cotton spinning mill waste: A viable source of raw material in paper making

Since the reserves of natural renewable resources are being inexorably diminished, the utilization of the recoverable waste in new area is gaining global attention day by day. Besides, as the cost of raw materials constitutes the majority of a production cost, the usage of undesirable but inevitable processing waste in the manufacturing process provides a considerable advantage to the manufacturers. Herein, it has been attempted to exploit unusable cotton spinning mill waste (filter waste derived from humidification plant) to convert it into paper. Handsheets of 70 g/m² and 80 g/m² were successfully produced from 100% cotton waste, 100% bleached cotton waste, and blends of bleached cotton waste with bleached hardwood kraft pulp (HWKP) (HWKP is typically used to produce commercial-grade papers). Morphologies and mechanical properties of handsheets were thoroughly investigated by whiteness index, brightness%, breaking length, tear index, bursting index, FTIR spectroscopy, optical microscope, and scanning electron microscope. Based on detailed observations, it is summarized that the produced handsheets, depending on the chemical treatment and blend ratio with HWKP, possess variations in appearances and properties that will have a wide range of potential applications from newsprint, tissue paper to commercial-grade writing and printing papers.