First Acid-Free Hemp Paper Produced in Turkey

Acid-free paper for restoration of historical artifacts is being produced at the SEKA Paper Museum in Kocaeli using traditional methods from hemp plant, which had not previously been utilized. The acid-free papers obtained from hemp through traditional techniques will both enable the restoration of historical artifacts and eliminate the need to source them from abroad. At the SEKA Paper Museum in Kocaeli, which operated for many years as Turkey's Cellulose and Paper Factories Company (SEKA) and was converted into a museum by Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality in 2016, acid-free paper production is being carried out using traditional methods—a product that could previously only be sourced from abroad. Emre Külcü (31), a graduate of Istanbul University's Forest Industry Engineering program who wrote his thesis on acid-free paper and works as a research and development and project team member at the SEKA Paper Museum, has achieved significant success with the project he developed. By producing acid-free paper from hemp plant, which had not previously been used for this purpose, Külcü is also preventing trees from being felled.

"I produced acid-free papers that are not manufactured in Turkey"

Expressing that they developed an acid-free paper project at the museum, Külcü stated, "We carried out this production by cooking paper pulp using the alkaline method and obtaining cellulose. I wrote my master's thesis on this subject at Istanbul University and produced acid-free papers that are not manufactured in Turkey. While Japanese paper mulberry (mitsumata) and various plants are used abroad for this purpose, I sought to find alternative plants in addition to these. The first of these was hemp plant and the other was cotton linter. Hemp is a plant with very high cellulose content from which we can obtain pulp with high strength. Strength tests and various resistance tests of the papers we obtained were conducted at Istanbul University Cerrah Paşa Forest Faculty. When we examined the values, papers obtained from hemp and cotton linter were compared with Japanese paper mulberry and it was determined that the values were quite high. At this point, it was proven that acid-free papers that we previously obtained only from abroad could also be produced in our country from various alternative plants. The acid-free papers obtained were applied to various artifacts by restorers in the Atatürk Library restoration and conservation laboratory, and it was proven that the papers could be used," he said. "If I succeed, I will make a major contribution to the paper museum" Noting that the recycling method is also used in paper pulp, Külcü stated: "We use the recycling method in our workshop for normal papermaking, but the production of acid-free paper pulp using the recycling method is not done in Turkey, and I have not come across an example of it abroad either. In my doctoral thesis, I plan to study this, and if I succeed, I will make a major contribution to the paper museum. Acid-free papers cannot be used in restoration and conservation because they cause brittleness. If manuscripts are applied to acidic papers, you will see that after 40 to 50 years these papers begin to deteriorate and damage the manuscripts. Importing acidic papers from abroad is very costly for our country. You might pay TRY 50-100 for a small sheet of paper. If we begin to produce these papers in series in Turkey, we will make a major contribution for our country. For the SEKA Paper Museum we have taken the first step in this direction. I hope we can develop this further and move to higher-scale production. Thanks to papers I have obtained from 100 percent hemp, I am preventing trees from being cut down and achieving lower-cost production."   [video mp4="https://www.turkchem.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/6ACA670B-E850-414C-B766-D3A7F2123F4A.mp4"][/video]