Abstract
This study was carried out to investigate the sheet formation properties of Morus Hanjis, made of bast and whole stalk pulps by different pulping methods, such as alkali, alkali-peroxide and sulfomethylated pulping. Two species of Morus, M. alba and M. lhou, were used. Effect of morphological properties of pulp stocks on the sheet formation and its gray levels based on optical property were evaluated using an Image analyzer. In addition, the effect of fiber distribution index(FDI) which was calculated from tile data of Confocal laser scanning microscopy(CLSM) on the sheet formation and optical properties of Morus Hanji were also discussed. On the sheet formation, Hanji from whole stalk pulp was superior than that of bast pulp. The more the sheet formation improved, the more paper opacity decreased. In the aspect of Hanji's surface characteristics analyzed by an Image analyzer, the average gray level and its standard deviation of Hanji from the whole stalk pulp were rather lower than those of bast pulp because of better sheet formation of the former. However, high brightness Hanji showed high value of gray level. The sheet formation and paper opacity were increased with the decrease of standard deviation of gray level. From these results, gray level measurement could be used to predict the paper opacity as well as sheet formation. Sheet formation of whole stalk Hanji and its FDI measured by CLSM were higher than those of bast fibers. In conclusion, the sheet formation and opacity of Hanji could be evaluated by standard deviation value of Hanji's gray level using an Image analyzer and by fiber distribution index using CLSM.