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BANANA FIBRE EXTRACTION & PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Industrial utilization of a bio-waste obtained from plant kingdom, adopting an appropriate technology without affecting ecological balance is a global phenomenon today. Banana plants are one of the major fruit and vegetable crop plants which remain as wastes in the field after harvesting the fruits. It produces considerable waste bio-mass which can easily be utilized for commercial exploitation.Banana plants are one of the major natural resources abundantly available in almost all areas of our country. It grows luxuriously in the state of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and in all the states of North Eastern region.They are grown over wide areas throughout the tropics from 300 N to 300 S of the Equator. The major banana growing regions of the world are the Caribbean Islands , the Central American Countries Ecuador , Columbia and Brazil in South America , the Cauvery Islands , Cameroons, Ivory Coast, Rounda Ureendi, Congo and Tanzania in Africa , India , Sri Lanka , Pakistan , Myanmar, Thailand , Malaysia, Indonesia, Java Philippines and a number of Polynesia Islands in the Pacific.The sheath of banana plants bears good quality fibres comparable to jute fibre even stronger than jute. Among the different varieties of banana plant Musa balbisiana, Musa Cavendish, Musa sapientum give superior quality fibre compare to the other varieties and can be used for making useful of high commercial value. North East Institute of Science and Technology, Jorhat has developed technology for extraction of fibres from banana pseudostem and the fibres are suitable for a wide variety of uses in the manufacture of fabrics, decorative handicraft items, twines and ropes, bristles for brushes, cushions etc of higher commercial value. Although, North East India has wide floral resources and plant diversity with a very congenial climatic condition for production of honey but the region has yet to prove the potentiality of being one of the ‘honey capital’ in the country due to lack of awareness, scarcity of skill manpower, lack of integration of beekeeping with agriculture and lack of bee colony for commercial cultivation. According to an estimate, the North East produces 5 lakh kg of honey annually and Assam contributes 25 per cent of the total produce. The source of honey in the region from both wild and cultivated bee hives. As per reports, Assam has only 5000 beekeepers, while North East has 40,000 beekeepers. Most of the beekeepers in the region are marginal, having one or two bee hives. Despite, the importance of beekeeping in employment and livelihood generation, the potentiality of beekeeping is not fully or even partially explored. Therefore, CSIR-NEIST has proposed to initiate some important activities under the project STINER for popularizing beekeeping in North East Region:
Advantages
Raw Materials
Four varieties of banana plants i. Musa balbisiana, ii. Musa paradisica, iii. Musa sapientum, iv. Musa cavendish are suitable for fibre extraction. However, certain wild varieties such as Musa velutina, Musa mannii etc grown in the hilly areas of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur etc also found suitable for extraction of fibres and product development
Grade of Fibre:
The different grades of fibres can be made from banana and depending upon the end use these fibres are used. Soft fibre: Various types of fabric making blended with cotton, wool and synthetic fibres, decorative items such as wall hangings, table mats, ladies bags, flower vase, children caps, lamp shades, etc. Medium soft fibre: Single ply and multiply twines, Hessian cloth, linoleum backings, theatrical canvas, utility items like kitbags, tool bags, grocery bags, etc. Coarse fibres: Coarse carpets, door mats, lime and cleaning brushes, cushions, etc.
Manufacturing Process:
Method of Extraction of Fibre:
Banana fibres are extracted from the sheath by the following methods:
Manual extraction-
The fibres are extracted from the sheath manually with the help of a scrapper. Stainless steel scraper with shape edge is generally prefers for manual extraction. Stainless steel glass can be used as scrapper for extraction of fibres. The sheaths are cut into the size of 30 cm length (appox.) and 8-10 cm width or as per requirement. Scrapping is done from the inner side of the sheath initially and in the later stage, it is done in the outer side. The fibres obtained from the scrapping method are smooth, silky, whitish and comparatively stiff to that of mechanically extracted fibre
Mechanical extraction by Fibre Respoder machine:
Mechanical extraction of fibre is done with the help of a commercial Respoder machine. Banana sheaths after removing from the stem can be used directly to the responder machine or can be used after removing of excess water by pressing through two roll crusher. The fibres extracted by mechanical process are smooth, uniform and whitish in color. The specification of the responder machine along with the photographs is given below.
Specification of fibre responder:
Extraction Capacity: 2 Kg/hour
Horse power of the motor: 1 HP
Length of the rolls: 18-20 inch
Number of knives: 8 Nos.
Treatment of Fibres:
Mechanically and manually extracted fibres are normally whitish in color. However sometimes there are possibilities to get the fibres having reddish in appearance. In that case, a mild bleaching treatment is given to get whitish fibre. Hydrogen Peroxide treatment helps to remove some of the unwanted materials like gum, tannin, lignin etc from the fibre and makes the fibre complete white
Peroxide Bleaching:
Hydrogen Peroxide bleaching of banana fibre is done in alkaline medium maintaining consistency at 10%. 5-7% hydrogen peroxide (30% W/V) is used on OD basis to bleach the fibre. The temperature is maintained at 40-60 0C, pH 8-10, time approximately 30-45 min or less depending upon the complete disappearance of the light brown color in the fibre. To maintain the pH, commercial hydroxide is used in the form of solution. The fibres after peroxide treatment, washed with cold fresh water. In the next batch of bleaching, the fibres can be put in same left over peroxide solution with add up chemicals of peroxide @ 75% of the requirement. The peroxide treatment is given only to the fibres if light brownish color develops after extraction of the fibre
Softening of the Fibre:
For making the fibre soft, a treatment with commercial detergent powder eg. Surf excel, Tide etc is given to the fibres @ 50 gm in 2-3 liter of water, for a period of 30 min, subsequently washing with cold fresh water. Sometimes, hot water is also be used depending upon the colour and stiffness of the fibre
Dyeing of Fibres:
The bleached fibres can be dyed by employing direct dyes. The dried dye (1-1.5%) based on the weight of the fibre is weighed and a solution in hot water is made. Screen the solution if needed. Treat the fibres soaked in the dye and keep for 30 minutes at boiling temperature. Screen the fibres off the coloured solution and put in a solution of 1.5%. Aluminium sulphate at room temperature and stir well. After 15 minutes take out the material and squeeze by passing through two rollers. Dry in air by hanging on ropes
Drying of the fibre:The wet fibres are dried in the sunlight by hanging the fibre in rows fabricated locally using galvanized pipes. When the fibres are totally dried in sunlight these can be used for making products
Product Making:
Industrial Product:
Mechanically extracted fibres can directly be used for making ropes, twins, threads etc useful for packaging of various items, commercial as well as household are presently synthetic ropes and twines are popularly used in packaging of different materials, through they are not eco-friendly and biodegradable. On the contrary, banana fibre ropes and twins are eco-friendly and biodegradable, and may be a suitable substitute synthetic product
Household and Decorative items:
The following decorative and household items of day to day use can be made from mechanically extracted banana fibre which has high market potentiality
Fabrics:
Various types of cloths, carpets by blending with wool, cotton and synthetic fibres
COST ECONOMICS FOR PRODUCTION OF BANANA FIBRE:
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