[Stoves] Grass Fireballs burn cleaner than wood

[Jeff Davis]

On Saturday 30 December 2006 07:26 pm, adkarve wrote:
> I think there is a basic difference in retting and alkali treatment.
> Retting causes the cellulose to degrade, leaving the lignin behind. Alkali
> treatment, which is used in the paper industry, removes lignin and leaves
> the cellulose behind.

Dear Dr Karve,

My understanding is that retting is/was used for making paper. Rettings like 
dew retting frees the fibrous for use. I think the lignin is what needs to be 
weaken in order to free the fibrous bundles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retting

There are many forms of retting: dew, chemical, water and enzyme retting


Jeff





-- 
Jeff Davis
Somewhere 20 miles south of Lake Erie, USA
http://www.velocity.net/~jeff0124