Utilization of Cotton Plant By-produce for Value Added Products.

The biomass available after the harvest of seedcotton is rich in cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin akin to that found in most hard woods. Thus, it is an excellent raw material for the manufacture of composite boards, pulp and paper, as well as for raising edible oyster mushrooms. Among these options, the manufacture of particle board has been found to be economically feasible. The Central Institute for Research on Cotton Technology (C1RCOT), India has standardized methods to manufacture composite board from cotton stalks collected and processed after the cotton harvest. Under the project, CIRCOT has designed models for the logistics of supplying cotton stalk to the particle board industry, and has installed a pilot plant at the CIRCOT Ginning Training Center in Nagpur, India. The cotton stalk supply chain model clearly showed that farmers could earn an additional income of US$12.5 (equivalent to Indian Rupees 500) per ton of dry biomass (10-12% moistt, re). Uprooting, cleaning, chipping and transportation of cleaned chips could fetch an additional income of US$50.00 (Rs. 2000) per ton if the industry is located within a radius of 50 kilometers. The cotton stalks may be cleaned of boll rinds and adhering residual lint manually by beating the stalks gently on a wooden mallet. The cleaning process is laborious and labor intensive, so a mechanical device was developed to remove the unwanted materials by running the uprooted stalks through a set of rollers. Mechanical cleaning may be a feasible alternative wherever labor is expensive or in short supply. In India, cotton stalks are uprooted manually and/or by a mechanical device in rainfed areas; they are usually cut flush with the ground in irrigated tracts. Remnants of boll rinds and roots can definitely affect the quality of the end product, i.e., particle board, hard board, soft board and medium density fiber board. Stalks must be processed in compliance with the required specifications. In the USA and other places where seed cotton is picked mechanically, the presence of boll finds in the stalks is minimal and the biomass may be sent directly to the chipping stage. A great effort has been put into developing a machine to compact the stalks and transport them in baled form to a centralized chipping center. The work done so far indicates that it is not economically feasible to process cotton stalks in the field and bale them for transportation to the factory. However, chipping the stalks in the field then transporting the chips directly to the board industry has been found to be feasible. Considering the above, operation of a 20-ton-per-day particle board plant in countries like India and other African and Asian countries have been found to be feasible and sustainable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]