Energy Conservation Drives for Efficient Extraction and Utilization of Banana Fibre

Banana is a well known fruit crop and grown extensively in Indian peninsula. In fact, India is the leading producer of this perennial crop. It is estimated that, after harvest of fruits, huge quantity of biomass residues (60t/ha – 80/t ha) is left over as waste that constitutes pseudo stem, leaves, sucker etc. There exists a vast potential of extracting fibres from the banana pseudo stem. It is estimated that annually 17,000 tonnes of fibres can be extracted from this waste valued roughly Rs. 85 crores. These enormous quantities of natural wealth can be exploited in fibre industry for the production of technical and non-technical textiles apart from its regular use in handicrafts and utility items. It involves a series of unit operations from extraction of fibre to making of final product from this natural resource. Though the manual process of extraction yields good quality of fibre but it is quite un-economical due to its labour extensive and low output (200gm/person/day) characteristics. Hence efficient extraction of banana fibre can only be possible through mechanization. However, formulation and implementation of energy conservation drives at different steps of banana fibre extraction and processing may be taken up either one at a time or all simultaneously as practicable depending upon the various parameters. Synthetic fibre has overwhelmed all over the world as it is cheap and easy to handle. However, indiscriminate use of synthetic fibres causes severe impact on the environment as it pollutes the environment and is non-biodegradable. Thus it becomes necessary to explore natural fibres. Quite a few numbers of alternative natural fibres are already established like ramie, mesta, sisal, roselle etc. However, the main objective of growing of these plants is production of fibre only. Banana (Musa sp.) is a well known important fruit crops grown in all over the world and can also be used as alternative source of useful quality fibres. The fruit bunches and leaves are main source of income, besides the leaves are used as bio plates for serving food in homes and functions. It is estimated that after the harvesting of fruit, huge quantity (60 to 80 t/ha) of waste biomass (pseudostem, leaves, suckers etc.) is generated. Presently, this biomass is discarded as waste (Johnston, 2003). Considerable work has been done in the field of direct use and product development from banana fruits. However, not much attention has been focused on effective utilization of the huge biomass generated in the form of pseudostem, leaves, suckers etc. In India, presently this biomass is dumped on roadside or burnt or left in situ causing detrimental impact on environment. Though the technologies for extraction of fibres and paper making from pseudostem are available, yet it has not been adopted by the industries mainly due to high transport cost. However, there exist a vast potential of extracting fibres from pseudostem. It is estimated that annually 17,000 tonnes of fibre can be extracted from the waste portion of the banana plant, valued at roughly Rs. 85 crore (Rs. 50,000 per tonne). In India the quantity and quality of fibres show wide variability with cultivars. Mostly the fibre is extracted by manual process and the yield of fibre is very low and this kind of manual process needs skilled labours. After a brief study of Banana fibre extraction, CTRI, Rajamundry has developed a Banana fibre extracting Machine, which can be easily operated by an unskilled labour giving maximum output. The fibre extracted from banana pseudostem could not command proper market owing to its restricted use in cottage industries. There appears to be good scope of profitable use of this fibre in textile and paper industries on commercial scale. Not only this, but number of high value products like carpets, coasters bags and different types of handicrafts can also be developed from banana pseudostem. In brief, banana fibre has a bright future and arena to perform in the forthcoming years. I. BANANA FIBRE IN INTERNATIONAL SCENARIO World Banana production in the year 2004 was estimated at about 70 million tons. The world contribution for the banana production is as given in the figure below. India is the largest producer of banana with 32.8% share in total global production of banana in 2008 (Fig.2). The other major banana producing countries are China, Brazil, Ecuador and Indonesia. Ecuador was the largest exporter of banana in 2007. The other major exporting countries in 2007 were Costa Rica, Colombia, Guatemala and Belgium. On the other end, Germany was the biggest importer of banana in 2007. The other major importing countries in 2007 were Belgium, Japan, Italy, France, Canada and China. Philippines and Japan are the major banana fibre producing countries for large scale manufacturing of textile items made from banana fibre. International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering Website: www.ijetae. com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 3, Issue 8, August 2013) 297 Philippines is also exporting huge quantity of readymade garments manufactured from banana fibre to Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and all far East Asian countries. In India, banana fibre is primarily used in cottage industry situated in Southern India. Fig.1. Overall global production trend in banana (in million tonnes) Fig. 2. Share of different countries in Banana production II. BANANA FIBRE EXTRACTION Fibre is extracted from the leaf sheath or pseudostem of the banana plant by decortication of the sheath. The pseudostem is the aerial stem seen above the ground and is formed by closely packed leaf sheaths embedded in the growing tip. Each leaf has a basal leaf sheath forming a part of pseudostem, petiole and lamina. It can be extracted by hand scraping, by retting, by using raspador machines; it can be extracted chemically, for example by boiling in NaOH solution. Extraction of the fibre for local use (in cordage) or for cottage industries in India has been through manual means. The manual process is adopted in the Phillipines and is called stripping. On the plantation site, the plant stems are desheathed, the sheaths flattened, a knife inserted between the outer and middle layer, and a 50-80mm wide strip is separated and pulled off along the length. The strip is called as a tuxy and the separation procedure is called tuxying. All the fibres are removed in tuxies from each sheath. The tuxies are then scraped by pulling them through/ between a wooden block and a serrated knife (400-2000 serrations/m or no serration) under considerable pressure. The manual effort, which is considerable, decreases with decreasing serration density. a. Manual stripping Banana fibre is extracted from waste stalk of banana plant. Generally banana fibre is situated near to the outer surface of the sheath and can be peeled-off easily in ribbons of strips of 5-8 cm wide and 2-4 mm thick along the entire length of the sheath. The stripping process is known as tuxying and the strips are called tuxies. There are two methods of tuxying as prevalent in Philippines.  Bacnis method In this method, trunks are pulled apart and the sheath is separated as per their position in stalk. Thereafter, they are flattened and the fibre is stripped from the stem by cutting the pulpy part and pulling away the tuxy.  Loenit method In this method tuxies are pulled off the stalk from one sheath at a time. After stripping, tuxies are bundled into bundles of 23-27 kg and brought to the stripping knife for cleaning. At last fibre is air dried and bundled for subsequent grading and bailing. Source: FAO Stats