Manufacture of medium density fiberboard (MDF) panels from agribased lignocellulosic biomass

Lignocellulosics fibers and commercially-manufactured-chip (Pinus sylvestris L., Fagus orientalis and Quercus robur L.) with 11% moisture conten twere used for the experiment. The mixingratios of lignocellulosics fibers was 20% which is from okra and tobaccos talks, hazelnut and walnuts hell, and pinecone for each mixture in preformed panel and commercially-manufactured-chip was 100 % for the control sample. A commercial ureaformaldehyde (UF) adhesive was used as a binder. The physical and mechanical properties such as density, thickness swelling (TS), bending strength (BS), modulus elasticity (MOE), internalbond (IB), screw holding ability (SHA) perpendicular to the plane of panel, Janka hardness perpendicular to the plane of panel properties of MDF were measured.The results indicated that all the panels met the general purpose-use requirements of TS-EN. Thus, our results suggest that biomass from different sources can be an alternative raw material for MDF manufacturing process.

The effect of hardener on adhesive and fiberboard properties

Ureaformaldehyde adhesive requires hardener and about 4-6.5 pH to be cured. In this study, boric acid, boron oxide, borax, sodium perborate tetrahydrate, sodium chloride, sodium chlorite and control samples containing ammonium chloride was used as an hardener to investigate cureability of urea formaldehyde adhesive. Chemicals used as an hardener tested to demonstrate the effect on gelation time, swelling properties, MOR and MOE. Ammonium chloride, boric acid and boron oxide improved to properties when used as an hardener in single use or in mixture.