Pretreatments of wheat straw with two dif erent lignindegrading fungal cultures Ceriporiopsis subvesmispora and Phlebia subserialis were carried out and their ef ects on sodaAQ
and kraftAQ pulping were studied. After two weeks of biotreatment of the wheat straw, both fungus
were found to be suitable for biochemical pulping. The fungal pretreatment decreased the kappa
number by as much as 24% and the unbleached pulp brightness increased by about 7% at a constant
yield. Furthermore, the biopretreatment increased the brightness of the fully bleached pulp by about
1 ISO% point. This can apparently reduce the amount of the chemicals used in the bleaching process. The results on the sugar analysis of the pulps showed that in terms of carbohydrate composition,
there were no significant dif erences between the biotreated and control pulps. However, the
strength properties of the unbleached and bleached chemical straw pulps decreased slightly after the
fungal pretreatment. This is dif erent from reported results that the strength properties of mechanical
pulps were improved after the fungal pretreatment. There was no dif erence of the two whiterot
fungal species, Ceriporiopsis subvesmispora and Phlebia subserialis in term of their ef ect on the
strength properties