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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Albany, California » Western Regional Research Center » Healthy Processed Foods Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #190845

Title: NEW USE OF SALINE BIOMASS AS RAW MATERIAL FOR PARTICLEBOARDS

Author
item Pan, Zhongli
item ZHENG, YI - UC DAVIS, DAVIS, CA
item ZHANG, RUIHONG - UC DAVIS, DAVIS, CA
item JENKINS, BRYAN - UC DAVIS, DAVIS, CA

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/1/2005
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Saline biomass crops have been planted in California for helping to manage saline subsurface water in arid land-irrigated agriculture. This research was aimed at developing new value-added applications of such saline biomass. Four different saline biomasses were used to make particleboards and the qualities of the particleboards were evaluated. The results showed that saline biomasses were high quality raw materials for manufacturing particleboards.

Technical Abstract: Saline biomass crops have been planted in California for helping manage saline subsurface water in arid land-irrigated agriculture. There is a need to develop value-added uses of such crops. Three such crops; Athel, Tamarix aphylla (L), Eucalyptus, Eucalyptus camaldulensis, and Jose Tall Wheatgrass (JTW), Agropyron elongatum, were used to make medium-density particleboards. The objective of this study was to determine the suitability of the saline biomasses as raw materials for medium-density particleboards. Two different adhesives, polymeric methane diphenyl diisocyanate (PMDI) and urea formaldehyde (UF), were used as binding resins with various levels in the particleboards. The effects of particle size and bark content of the saline biomasses and pretreatments on the properties of particleboards were investigated. The evaluated particleboard properties included water absorption, thickness swell and mechanical properties, such as tensile strength (TS), modulus of rupture (MOR), modulus of elasticity (MOE) and internal bond strength (IB). It was found the 20-40 mesh particles gave the best quality of the medium-density particleboards. The particleboards bond with PMDI had better quality than that with UF resin. The increase of bark content in the particleboards reduced the quality of the particleboards. The results also showed that the particleboards made from all three materials had excellent mechanical properties, which exceeded the grade M-1 requirements of the American National Standard (ANSI) for Particleboard A208.1. The water absorption of particleboard made from Athel was lower than that of the particleboard made from Eucalyptus. It has been concluded that the saline biomasses are suitable materials for manufacturing medium-density particleboards.