First attempt to extract the fiber bundles in the leaves of corn bract

This paper reports the first attempt to extract the fiber bundles in the corn bract leaves (agricultural waste material). The hydrothermal treatment or dew retting treatment was found to be effective for this purpose. The hydrothermal treatment at 130 °C for one day could more effectively remove the parenchyma cells surrounding the bast fiber bundle as compared with the dew retting treatment. The apparent crystallinity index and the crystallite size of the fiber bundles obtained from the bract leaves after the hydrothermal treatment at 130 °C for one day resulted in 62.7 % and 3.9 nm, respectively. The tensile properties were measured using the fiber bundles obtained after the dew retting treatment at room temperature for one month, and the tensile strength and elongation at break resulted in 1.55 ± 0.35 gf/d and 0.50 ± 0.20 %, respectively.