Journal of Cleaner Production 134 (2016) 592e599

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Characterization and comparison of cellulose fiber extraction from rice

straw by chemical treatment and thermal steam explosion
Makarawat Boonterm a, Surakan Sunyadeth a, Suchada Dedpakdee b,
Panaake Athichalinthorn a, Somjate Patcharaphun a, Rattanawan Mungkung c, d,
Ratchatee Techapiesancharoenkij a, e, *
a
Department of Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Kasetsart University, 50 Ngamwongwan Rd., Chatuchak, Bangkok, 10900, Thailand
b
Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Advanced and Sustainable Environmental Engineering (International Program), Faculty of Engineering, Kasetsart
University, 50 Ngamwongwan Rd., Chatuchak, Bangkok 10900, Thailand
c
Department of Environmental Technology and Management, Faculty of Environment, Kasetsart University, 50 Ngamwongwan Rd., Chatuchak, Bangkok,
10900, Thailand
d
Centre of Excellence on enVironmental Strategy for GREEN Business (VGREEN), Faculty of Environment, Kasetsart University, 50 Ngamwongwan Rd.,
Chatuchak, Bangkok 10900, Thailand
e
Materials Innovation Center, Faculty of Engineering, Kasetsart University, 50 Ngamwongwan Rd., Chatuchak, Bangkok, 10900, Thailand

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Rice straw is one of the major agricultural wastes in Thailand. It can potentially be processed to extract
Received 28 October 2014 natural fibers from which environmentally sustainable products, e.g. papers, can be subsequently made.
Received in revised form This research studied the characteristics of cellulose fibers extracted from rice straw by two different
19 September 2015
treatments: (i) chemical treatment and (ii) thermal steam explosion. For the chemical treatment,
Accepted 21 September 2015
sodium-hydroxide (NaOH) solutions with varying concentration were applied to treat fibers. Life Cycle
Available online 9 October 2015
Assessment (LCA) was used to evaluate and compare the potential environmental impacts of the natural-
fiber thermal insulation pads produced by different rice-straw cellulose extraction processes. The
Keywords:
Cellulose fiber
morphological results show that an increase of NaOH concentration decreases the fibers' average
Rice straw diameter and length and fiber yielding; however, the aspect ratio of length-to-width increases with
Sodium-hydroxide chemical treatment increasing NaOH concentration. For the thermal steam explosion, the cellulose fibers were extremely
Steam explosion treatment broken down resulting in significant reduction in the fiber diameter and length. The results of Fourier
Thermal insulation transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR) spectrum analyses reveal that both treatments only lightly dis-
Life cycle assessment solved lignin and hemicellulose from the cellulose fibers. Thermal insulation pads were produced from
the extracted cellulose fibers using natural rubber as a binder. The thermal conductivity coefficient of the
natural-fiber thermal insulations was in the range of 0.11e0.14 W/m-K. The LCA results showed that the
thermal steam explosion process potentially reduced the environmental impacts as compared to the
chemical extraction treatment due to a significant reduction in an eco-toxicity impact and a higher fiber
yielding. However, the energy consumption of the thermal explosion process is a main issue that needs
to be improved for the further development of eco fiber insulation pads produced from extracted rice-
straw cellulose.
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction waste. Rice straw is one of the major agricultural wastes in

Thailand is an agricultural country with 41% of the total area
used for agriculture resulting in a large amount of agricultural
* Corresponding author. Department of Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engi-
neering, Kasetsart University, 50 Ngamwongwan Rd., Ladyao, Chatuchak, Bangkok
10900, Thailand. Tel.: þ66 8 0440 4576; fax: þ66 2 955 1811.
E-mail address: fengrct@ku.ac.th (R. Techapiesancharoenkij).
Thailand. To help reduce waste problem, the agricultural waste can
potentially be processed to extract natural fibers from which
environmentally sustainable products can be subsequently made,
e.g. papers (Mazhari Mousavi et al., 2013), eco-composites
(Gonza
lez-Sa

nchez et al., 2014), thermal insulation (Panyakaew
and Fotios, 2011; Klinklow et al., 2013). The present study focuses
on the production of a thermal insulation from agricultural waste as
it can potentially be one of value-added products in building or

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.09.084
0959-6526/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 M. Boonterm et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 134 (2016) 592e599
packaging industries. Different agricultural wastes, e.g. corn
cob (Pinto et al., 2012), narrow-leaved Cattail fibers
(Luamkanchanaphan et al., 2012), flax and hemp (Kyma €la
€inen and
Sjo€berg, 2008), Sunflower stalk (Binici et al., 2014), kenafefiber
(Ardente et al., 2008), and coconut husk and bagasse (Panyakaew
and Fotios, 2011), were reportedly processed to form natural-fiber
insulations.
To produce a thermal insulation from straw cellulose fibers, the
fibers must first be extracted from rice straws. Rice straws are
natural fiber composites that consist of cellulose as main fibers,
hemicellulose as inter-connected branch, and lignin as a binder
(Sain and Panthapulakkal, 2006). Normally, the fiber-extractive
treatment on rice straws leached out most of hemicellulose and
lignin to retrieve dominantly-cellulose fibers. The treatment of rice
straws to extract natural fibers may be done by physical or chemical
methods (Chen et al., 2013a). Physical treatments include the
techniques of ionized gas (plasma or corona), laser or thermal-
steam explosion.
The steam exploded treatment, which is the method of interest
in this study, can be accomplished by an application of high pres-
sure steaming, involving heating of the materials at high temper-
ature and pressure followed by mechanical disruption of the
pretreated material by violent discharge (explosion) into a collec-
tion tank (Iroba et al., 2014). The steam treatment is an effective
preetreatment process for wheat straw fibers to destroy lignin
proportion and extract the bundle of rice straw fibers (Zhang et al.,
2008). Higher steam temperature and longer retention time
resulted in more homogeneous fiber with the fiber surface wetta-
bility was improved. The ash and extractives (e.g. silicon) were
reduced and the tensile strength of the treated fiber was enhanced
by the steam explosion treatment (Han et al., 2009, Han et al.,
2010).
For a traditional chemical treatment, a solution of hydroxyl
group (NaOH, KOH) was used to remove lignin from natural fibers
for producing hybrid composites (K. Majeed et al., 2013; Liu et al.,
2015). Hemicelluloses was broken and eliminated by the chemi-
cal treatment. From TG-FTIR analysis, the absorbance intensities of
C]O was decreased through acid treatment, while increased
through NaOH treatment (Sheng et al., 2014), which might indicate
that the stretching vibration of free carbonyl groups was broken
and separated by NaOH solution more than by the acid treatment.
To minimize the environmental impact due to chemical waste and
maximize the extraction efficiency, the application of combined
steam explosion and alkaline treatment have been used to extract
cellulose fibers from bark of cotton stalks with high cellulose-
yielding percentage and high aspect ratio (Hou et al., 2014). Also,
a hybrid of chemical and mechanical method was reportedly co-
ordinated in a pre-treatment of rice straw, e.g. the acidecatalyzed
steam exploded process which was used for saccharification (Chen
et al., 2013b). Currently, the chemical treatment of fibers by NaOH
solution is one of the most common extraction process, which re-
sults in toxic side-effect regarding hydroxides of alkaline or alkaline
earth and requires large amount of water to clean fibers after
extraction process treatment (Klinklow, 2012; Klinklow et al.,
2013). Therefore, it is imperative that an alternative,
environmental-friendly method for fiber extractions, e.g. the steam
explosion treatment, should be considered in place of the chemical
treatment.
Environmental-friendly methods have been developed and
discussed in several reports. Panyakaew and Fotois (Panyakaew and
Fotios, 2011) produced a thermal insulation board from Coconut
husk and bagasse without chemical binding additive, aiming to
develop a thermal insulation process with lower environmental
footprint than conventional materials. A life cycle assessment was
used to analyze an environmental impact of a kenaf-fiber insulation
593
board focusing on main environmental impact, pointing out critical
issues and suggesting the highest improvement potentials for the
insulation boards (Ardente et al., 2008). Life cycle assessment has
been increasingly applied for analyzing waste-recycled products,
such as building materials, which is a broad international accep-
tance as means to improve environmental processes and prevent
adverse environmental impacts (Ortiz et al., 2009). It has been re-
ported that a steam explosion process can be favorable over the
chemical process in pre-treatment of natural fibers, according to
the environmental sustainability study on comparing wheat straw
production pathways in bioethanol production using the LCA
approach (Wang et al., 2013). However, the LCA comparison, be-
tween the thermal insulation pads made of fibers extracted by the
steam explosion and the chemical treatment of the rice straws, has
not been reported.
In this work, the steam explosion and the NaOH solution
treatment of rice straws are investigated and compared on the
aspects of both physical properties and environmental impact. The
extracted fibers from both treatments were characterized and
subsequently used to form a thermal insulation pad by spray lay-up
method with a natural rubber as a binder. The thermal conductiv-
ities and LCA-based environmental impacts of the insulation pads
from different fiber-extraction processes are reported and dis-
cussed herein.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Preparation of the rice straw fibers
The rice straws, obtained from a local field in Loppburi province,
Thailand, were cut to 1 and 3 cm in length. The straws were
cleaned, dried at 80  C for 8 h and then treated by either the sodium
hydroxide (NaOH) chemical treatment or the steam explosion
treatment. The chemical treatment conditions, e.g. NaOH concen-
tration and extraction time, were obtained from the previous re-
ports (Klinklow, 2012; Klinklow et al., 2013). The fiber-extraction
treatments can be summarized as following:
2.1.1. Laboratory-scale chemical treatment
The 10-g of 1-cm straws were treated with 1, 5, 10 and 15 wt%
NaOH solution for 30 min using a fiber to solution ratio of 1:20 by
weight. The optimal length of a pre-treated straw is approximately
1 cm for a NaOH solution treatment; as a result, only 1-cm straws
were used for the chemical treatment in this study. The chemical
solution was continuously agitated using a magnetic stirrer. The
extracted fibers were rinsed with water, then air-dried.
2.1.2. Pilot-scale chemical treatment
The 500-g of 1-cm straws were treated with 15 wt% NaOH so-
lution in a 40-L batch blending machine for 30 min using a fiber to
solution ratio of 1:20 by weight. The extracted fibers were rinsed,
and then dried in an oven at 100  C for 8 h.
2.1.3. Thermal steam explosion
The thermal steam exploded process was conducted with
assistance from Kasetsart Agricultural and Agro-Industrial Product
Improvement Institute (KAPI), Kasetsart University. The 1-cm and
3-cm straws were steamed at 17 bar (205  C) for 5 min in a 2-L
batch reactor. After the first-batch characterization, 3-cm pre-
treated straws yielded better results of extracted fibers. As a
result, the second batches of 3-cm straws were mechanically
steamed under varying pressure: 13 bar (192  C), 15 bar (200  C)
and 17 bar (205  C). At the end of the 5-min steaming, the valve was
opened for the “explosive depressurization” to occur (Ibrahim et al.,
2011). The steam-exploded fibers were shot through a connecting
594 M. Boonterm et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 134 (2016) 592e599
pipe and collected in a collection bin. The product came out in a
sludge form and the fibers were centrifuged and dried in oven at
100  C for 8 h.
2.2. Preparation of insulation board
The natural-fiber insulation boards were prepared from two
different fiber-extraction processes: (i) straw fibers extracted by
15 wt% NaOH solution and (ii) straw fibers extracted by 15-bar
steam exploded method. The extracted fibers were uniformly
spread, along with a binder spray, on a forming block of
10  10  1.5 cm dimensions. One batch of an insulation pad
contained about 20 g of the extracted fibers. The binder was a
mixture of natural rubber and water at 1:1 ratio by weight. Per one
insulation board, the fibers and the binder mixture were used at
approximately 1:1 ratio by weight. The insulation boards were
subsequently dried and cured in an oven at 100  C for 24 h. The
resultant insulation boards are shown in Fig. 1.
2.3. Characterization of the extracted fibers and insulation pads
Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR), Bruker: Alpha-E,
was used to examine the chemical structure of pre-treated straw
and post-treated fibers in the spectra range of 4000e600 cm1.
The morphology of the rice straw fibers was investigated using
an optical microscope (Leica). The image analysis of the fiber mi-
crographs was conducted using ImageJ software to determine the
fiber average diameter. The average fiber length was measured
directly on individual fibers by a vernier dial caliper (Mitutoyo,
0.01 mm graduation). The aspect ratio was then calculated from the
average diameter and length. The fiber yielding is calculated from
the percentage ratio of the output extracted-fiber weight to the
input rice-straw one.
The heat-flow meter instrument HC-074, EKO, supported by
Center of Building and Innovation Technology, Faculty of Archi-
tecture, Kasetsart University, was used to measure the thermal
conductivity coefficient of the insulation pads.
The environmental impacts of the insulation board productions
were evaluated by the life cycle assessment (LCA) method.
2.4. Life cycle assessment of the insulation pads
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was used to evaluate and compare
the potential environmental impacts of the rice-straw-fiber insu-
lator processing, according to ISO14040 and 14044 (ISO, 2006a,
Fig. 1. The insulation pads were made from (a) straw fibers treated by 15 wt% NaOH solution and (b) straws fibers treated by 15-bar steam explosion.
2006b). Input and output data were collected from the primary
data when preparing the insulation pads by using steam explosion
and chemical treatment. The fibers came from two different fiber
sources: (i) the fibers extracted from 3-cm rice straw treated by
15 wt% NaOH solution and (ii) the fibers extracted from 3-cm rice
straw treated by 15 bar steam explosion. The inputs and outputs
associated with the two processes were identified and collected
from the primary data based on the experiments. The scope of
analysis covered two processing stages, shown in the flow chart of
the production system (Fig. 2), including Stage I: the fiber-
extraction treatments, consisting of consumed electricity of
steaming reactor (for steam-exploded treatment), blending ma-
chine in chemical process (for chemical treatment), drying oven
and transportation along with associated inputs and outputs in this
process, and Stage II: the insulation pad preparation, consisting of
chemical input (e.g. latex binder) and consumed electricity of
drying oven after spray lay-up process. The functional unit was 1 kg
of the fiber insulator. The associated background data were mainly
sourced from the national life cycle inventory databases, supple-
mented by the international databases when necessary, which
were mainly from EcoInvent (Version 2.2). The impact assessment
methods were IPCC 2007 for Climate change (CC) and ReCiPe
Midpoint (H) for Terrestrial acidification (TA), Freshwater eutro-
phication (FE), Human toxicity (HT), Terrestrial ecotoxicity (TET),
Marine ecotoxicity (MET), and Freshwater ecotoxicity (FET).
3. Results and discussion
Fig. 3 shows the FTIR spectra of untreated and treated rice straw
fibers under different treatments. The dominant absorption peaks
at 3340 cm1 and 2920 cm1 are attributed to stretching vibrations
of eOH and CeH groups, respectively. The hydroxyl (eOH) groups
are dominantly present in the cellulose, water and lignin structures
(Tomczak et al., 2007; Brígida et al., 2010); while, the characteristic
bands of the CeH are usually present in the cellulose and hemi-
cellulose components. The smaller shoulder peak at 1730 cm1 in
the untreated rice corresponds to the carbonyl (C]O) stretching
vibration, which may corresponds to the aliphatic esters found in
lignin and hemicelluloses (Romanzini et al., 2012). The 1730 cm1
peak still appears when rice straw is treated with 1 and 5 wt% NaOH
solution and steam explosion. Between 1320 and 1360 cm1, the
absorption peak refers to the CeH and CeO groups of the aromatic
rings in both polysaccharides and residue lignin. The band at
1060 cm1 is assigned to CeOeC pyranose ring skeletal vibration,
that bond was found in lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose
 M. Boonterm et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 134 (2016) 592e599
Fig. 2. Flow chart of the fiber-insulation production system.
(Xiaolang Chen et al., 2011); significant reduction of this band is
evident for the chemically-treated fibers while minimal reduction
is observed for the steam-treated fibers. The intensity reductions of
these characteristic bands for the post-treated fibers, as compared
to the pre-treated straws, imply that lignin and hemicellulose were
largely removed after the treatments. Interestingly, for all the NaOH
treatments, the absorbance units show the significant intensity
reduction for all peaks implying that most lignin and hemicellulose
components in the rice straws were leached away by the NaOH
solution. On the other hand, the relative spectrum peaks of the
steam-exploded fibers are slightly reduced as compared to those of
untreated straw fiber, implying the remaining of lignin and
Fig. 3. The FTIR spectrum of (i) untreated rice straws (labeled as Normal), (ii) 1-cm
fibers treated with steam explosion at 17 bar, 5 min (1 cm Steaming), (iii) 3-cm
fibers treated with steam explosion at 17 bar, 5 min (3cm Steaming), (iv) 1-cm fibers
treated with laboratory-scale 5 %wt NaOH solution (NaOH5% Lab), (v) 1-cm fibers
treated with laboratory-scale 15 %wt NaOH solution (NaOH15% Lab) and (vi) 1-cm
fibers treated with pilot-scale 15 %wt NaOH solution (NaOH15% Pilot).
595
hemicellulose even after treatment and washing processes. Corre-
spondingly, the steam-exploded fibers are evidently dark-brown, as
shown in Fig. 1(b), implying significant remaining of lignin. Partial
removal of hemicelluloses and lignin by a mechanical-high pres-
sure steam treatment was also reported by Chen et al. (Chen et al.,
2011). On the other hand, the chemically-treated fibers, Fig. 1(a) are
observably light-brown as most of lignin was leached away.
Fig. 4 shows the representative pictures of the laboratory-scale
15 wt% NaOH treated fibers (Fig. 4(a)), the pilot-scale 15 wt%
NaOH treated fibers (Fig. 4(b)), and the 17 bar steam exploded
treated fibers (Fig. 4(c)), taken by an optical microscope at 200
magnification for the image analysis of the average diameter esti-
mation. The 17 bar steam fibers (Fig. 4(c)) exhibited finer diameters
than those of the chemical treated ones. Table 1 shows the data of
average fiber diameter, length, aspect ratio and fiber yielding from
different treatments. The average diameter, length, and fiber
yielding decrease with increasing NaOH concentration, while the
fiber aspect ratio increases with increasing concentration. The re-
sults from laboratory and pilot scales for 15 wt% NaOH are relatively
identical. The steam exploded process results in even lower fiber
diameter and length than the results from the 15 wt% NaOH
treatment, while retains higher aspect ratio and fiber yielding than
the chemical treatment.
For the steam exploded process at 17 bar, the 3-cm straw fibers
result in higher aspect ratio than the 1-cm fibers; as a result, the 3-
cm fibers were subsequently treated under different steam pres-
sure: 13, 15 and 17 bar in order to obtain an optimized pressure for
the highest aspect ratio. The results in Table 1 show that the
yielding increases with decreasing of steaming pressure and the 15-
bar steam explosion produced the fibers with highest aspect ratio.
Increasing the pressure from 13 to 15 bar significantly reduce the
fiber diameters for higher aspect ratio. However, increasing the
pressure to 17 bar results in lower aspect ratio due to significant
tearing and damage of fibers that the fiber length was drastically
shorten as well as low fiber yielding. Previous studies on the steam
596 M. Boonterm et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 134 (2016) 592e599

Fig. 4. Representative optical microscope pictures (200 magnification) of the treated 1-cm straw fibers: (a) treated with 15 wt% NaOH in laboratory scale (b) treated with 15 wt%
NaOH in pilot scale (c) treated with 17-bar stream explosion.

explosion treatment of other natural-fiber sources such as banana
fibers (Deepa et al., 2011) and salix miyabeana fibers (Diop et al.,
2015) also report that too high pressure could lead to aspect-ratio
reduction due to fiber tearing. As compared to the 15 wt%-NaOH
treatment, the steam-exploded process under 13, 15 and 17 bar
provide significantly higher fiber yielding.
Three differently-treated straw fibers, (i) 15 wt% NaOH-treated
1-cm fibers (ii) 15 wt% NaOH-treated 3-cm fibers and (iii) 15-bar
steam-exploded 3-cm fibers, were used to prepare thermal insu-
lation pads by a spray lay-up method with a natural rubber as a
binder. The thermal conductivity coefficients of the three natural-
fiber insulations were measured and compared with the values of
other common insulation materials (measured by the same heat-
flow meter instrument HC-074, EKO); the results are shown in
Table 2. The thermal conductivity coefficients of the insulation
pads, made of the 1-cm chemically-treated fibers, 3-cm chemically-
treated fibers and 3-cm steam-exploded fibers, are relatively
similar, even though the 3-cm chemically-treated fibers and steam-
exploded fibers exhibited higher aspect ratio than the 1-cm
chemically-treated fibers. The insignificant effect of the aspect ra-
tio on the thermal conductivity in this work may be due to the fact
that all three fibers are classified in a short fiber range, as their
respective aspect ratios were much lower than 1000 (Bader, 2000).
To observe significant reduction of the thermal conductivity, one
may need to extract long fibers with aspect ratio above 1000.
However, long fibers would show significantly high entanglement
of fibers. As a result, the spray lay-up method would not be suitable
for the production of long-fiber insulation pad due to the difficulty
in spreading fibers.
The steam-exploded fiber insulation showed slightly lower
thermal conductivity than the chemically-treated fiber counterpart
even with similar aspect ratio, which may be due to different
chemical and molecular structures of the extracted fibers as evident
in the FTIR results above. The thermal conductivity coefficients of
the three straw fiber insulations are in the range of 0.11e0.14 W/m-
K, which is approximately close to those of gypsum board and
bricks. However, the thermal conductivity of the straw fiber insu-
lations is still much higher than that of the EPS foam. High porosity
level is critical to an insulation performance as air is much better
thermally insulate than solid and liquid. The porosity level of the
straw fiber insulations is still much lower than that of EPS foam. The
amount of natural-rubber binders used in the insulation pads may
significantly increase solid matters in the insulations and may
attribute a higher thermal conductivity of the straw-fiber insu-
lations. It is important that the ratio of binder to fiber is minimized
to reduce a solid proportion in an insulation pad while retaining an
insulation robustness.
Fig. 5 shows the comparison of the overall environmental-
impact factors of the fiber-extraction treatment and the
insulation-pad preparation, comparing between the insulation
pads from 15-wt% NaOH pilot-treated 3-cm fibers and 15 bar
steam-exploded 3-cm fibers. The LCA results show that the
steam explosion treatment exhibited significantly lower envi-
ronmental impact than the chemical treatment, in the categories
of freshwater eutrophication, human toxicity, terrestrial ecotox-
icity, freshwater ecotoxicity and marine ecotoxicity, by about 83%,
74%, 76%, 11% and 57%, respectively that mainly due to high
NaOH consumption. However, the steam explosion process
showed higher impact on the climate change than that of the
chemical treatment by 12%, mainly due to electricity consump-
tion. Both steam explosion and chemical processes showed
similar impact on the terrestrial acidification. Dedpakdee et al.
(2015) has previously reported that using of high concentration
of NaOH could lead to a high potential impact on toxicity as the
consequences of chemical production and wastewater treatment
afterwards. Phong et al. (2012) similarly showed that an alkali
treatment had high impacts on the environment due to high
toxicity. It has also been reported that the steam explosion
method can potentially be used as an environmental-friendly
fiber preparation process due to no chemical consumption

Table 1
Average width, length, aspect ratio, and fiber yielding of 1-cm and 3-cm rice straw fibers after different treatments.

Treatment methods for rice straw fibers AVG diameter AVG length Aspect ratio (L/D) Fiber yielding (%)

(D, mm) (L, mm)

1-cm length rice straw fibers

1 wt% NaOH Lab scale 0.44 8.3 19 82
5 wt% NaOH Lab scale 0.46 7.9 17 59
10 wt% NaOH Lab scale 0.44 6.5 15 41
15 wt% NaOH Lab scale 0.2 7.3 37 25
15 wt% NaOH Pilot scale 0.16 5.9 38 22
17 bar, 5 min Steam explosion 0.12 4.9 42 40
3-cm length rice straw fibers
15 wt% NaOH Pilot scale 0.17 26.2 150 28
13 bar, 5 min Steam explosion 0.26 35.5 140 77
15 bar, 5 min Steam explosion 0.16 30.5 200 59
17 bar, 5 min Steam explosion 0.11 8.1 73 45
 M. Boonterm et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 134 (2016) 592e599 597

Table 2
Average density, thickness and thermal conductivity coefficient of insulation samples.

Thermal insulation types Density (kg/m3) Thickness (cm) AVG thermal conductivity coefficient (W/m-K)

Gypsum board 1000 1.36 0.150 ± 0.006

Expanded Polystyrene Foam (EPS) 21 4.97 0.019
Brick 2000 4.22 0.159 ± 0.006
Tile 2750 1.16 0.498 ± 0.025
15 wt% NaOH-treated 1-cm fibers insulation 180.3 1.78 0.143 ± 0.007
15 wt% NaOH-treated 3-cm fibers insulation 174.6 1.78 0.140 ± 0.015
15 bar steam-exploded 3-cm fibers insulation 186.6 1.58 0.110 ± 0.018

(Garrote et al., 1999). Moreover, marked difference in fiber
yielding between the steam-explosion and chemical treatments
has been similarly reported in prior studies. Rocha et al. (2015)
reports that, for a bagasse-fiber extraction process, a pilot-scale
steam explosion (200-L reactor) results in higher fiber yielding
than that of the chemical treatment. As a result, better quality
and higher yielding of fibers prepared by the steam explosion, as
compared to the chemical treatment, help lower its environ-
mental impact, which was corresponding to the previous study
by Saelee et al. (2014).
The proportional contributions of the individual materials and
preparation stages on each environmental impact factor, for the
insulation pad made of the fibers extracted by chemical 15 wt
%-NaOH treatment, is shown in Fig. 6. The environmental impact on
the climate change and terrestrial acidification were mainly asso-
ciated with the electricity consumption by 62% and 55% respec-
tively (largely during the fiber drying and binder curing processes).
NaOH usage contributes to the impact on human toxicity by 69%,
terrestrial eco-toxicity 40% and marine eco-toxicity 39%. Latex
binder usage contributes to the impact on freshwater eco-toxicity
by 28%, human toxicity 23% and marine eco-toxicity 20%. More-
over, the freshwater eutrophication was mainly associated with the
water treatment by 80% due to the requirement of waste-water
treatment as a large amount of water used for dissolving NaOH
and cleaning the extracted fibers.
The proportional contributions of the individual materials and
preparation stages on each environmental impact factor, for the
insulation pad made of the fibers extracted by the 15-bar steam
explosion treatment, is shown Fig. 7. Two major factors, including
(i) the electricity consumption and (ii) the usage of latex binders,
dominantly contributed to all the environmental impact factors.
The electricity consumption mainly contributes to the impact on
climate change by 94%, followed by terrestrial acidification 92%,
freshwater eutrophication 60%, terrestrial ecotoxicity 31%, fresh-
water ecotoxicity 61% and marine ecotoxicity 43%. Moreover, the
use of latex binders impacts on freshwater eutrophication by 29%,
human toxicity 88%, terrestrial ecotoxicity 58%, freshwater eco-
toxicity 31% and marine ecotoxicity 45%. The latex binders are the
main cause that produces chemical residues in the insulation-
forming process. The steam explosion process significantly
consumed electricity to elevate the steam-pressure level in the
controlled boiler leading to increased impacts on the climate
change due to CO2 emission from the electricity production based
on fossil fuel (coal, oil, and natural gas). To reduce the environ-
mental impact, a pilot-scale steaming reactor with higher fiber
yielding per consumed-electric unit should be developed.

Fig. 5. Potential environmental impact of fiber treatments and insulation-pad preparation, comparing between the insulation pads that were made of the extracted fibers from (i)
15 wt% NaOH treatment, labeled as Eco-insulator (chemical treatment), and (ii) 15-bar-steam explosion, labeled as Eco-insulator (Steam explosion).
598 M. Boonterm et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 134 (2016) 592e599

Fig. 6. The proportional contributions of the individual materials and preparation stages on each environmental impact factor, for the insulation pad made of the fibers extracted by
chemical 15 wt%-NaOH treatment.

The fiber thermal-insulation physical characteristics and the
environmental-impact results help identify the eco-design stra-
tegies. The analyses suggest that the thermal steam explosion can
potentially be an alternative and more eco-friendly fiber extrac-
tion process. However, the electricity consumptions required for
the thermal explosion and the binder-curing processes, and the
large amount of latex binders required for thermal insulation
forming are the critical areas that potentially cause a significant
environmental impact. The process should be improved to mini-
mize the electricity consumption for further development of eco
fiber insulation pads produced from extracted rice-straw
cellulose.

Fig. 7. The proportional contributions of the individual materials and preparation stages on each environmental impact factor, for the insulation pad made of the fibers extracted by
the 15-bar steam explosion treatment.
 M. Boonterm et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 134 (2016) 592e599
4. Conclusion
The rice straws were treated by two different treatments, NaOH
solution and thermal steam explosion, to extract fibers. For the
chemical treatment, higher NaOH concentration results in exten-
sive chemical extraction with lower fiber yielding and shorter fiber
diameter and length, yet the fiber aspect ratio increases with
increasing concentration. The steam explosion appeared to break
down the fibers more than the chemical treatment with shorter
length and larger aspect ratio. However, the visual inspection and
the FTIR analyses show that the steam-exploded fibers contain
larger proportions of remaining lignin and hemicelluloses than
those from the chemical treatments. The steam-exploded treat-
ment shows higher fiber yielding than the chemical treatment. The
extracted fibers, from chemically treatment and steam-exploded
treatment, were used to form thermal insulation pads. The ther-
mal conductivity coefficients of the straw-fiber insulation pads are
in the range of 0.11e0.14 W/m-K, which are similar to those of
gypsum boards and bricks but much higher than that of the EPS
foam. The aspect ratio of the extracted fibers minimally affects the
insulation property. The steam-exploded fiber insulation exhibits
lower thermal conductivity than the chemically-treated fiber
insulation, which may be due to different chemical and molecular
structures of the fibers. The life cycle assessment indicated that the
thermal steam explosion is shown to be a more environmental-
friendly method than the NaOH treatment. The steam exploded
treatment obviously reduced environmental impacts in the cate-
gory of freshwater eutrophication, human toxicity, terrestrial eco-
toxicity and marine ecotoxicity due to the avoided NaOH usage and
higher fiber yielding.
Acknowledgment
This research is funded by Cluster and Program Management
Office (CPMO), National Science and Technology Development
Agency (NSTDA), Grant#CPM-57-028. MB thanks Faculty of Engi-
neering, Kasetsart University for Graduate Fellowship. RT thanks
the Center of Advanced Studies in Industrial Technology, Kasetsart
University, for support.
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