STUDY ON THE POSSIBILITY OF MANUFACTURING PARTICLEBOARD WITH PAPER SLUDGE AND WOOD CHIPS

Abstract

Beneficial utilization of large quantity of paper sludge from Mazandaran Wood & Paper Industry in particleboard manufacturing has been studied. Single-layer and three-layer particleboard (paper sludge as a surface layer) were produced. Urea-formaldehyde resin at two levels of 10 and 12 percent and paper sludge content at 4 levels, 0, 15, 30 and 45 percent were studied. Other factors such as press temperature (160oC), press time (6minutes), mat moisture (12%), board density (0.75g/cm3) and etc were constant factors. Mechanical and physical properties including bending strength, shear strength, thickness swelling and water absorption after 2 and 24 hours immersion were evaluated. The results indicated that application of paper sludge reduced mechanical properties and improved thickness swelling .The particleboard produced with 15%paper sludge had the least water absorption, but by using more paper sludge, water absorption increased. Single-layer particleboard had higher bending strength. However, there was no significant different in shear strength between single and three layer particleboard. Three-layer particleboard showed lower thickness swelling.

Keywords

• PARTICLEBOARD
• UREA-FORMALDEHYDE
• PAPER SLUDGE
• Bending strength
• Shear strength
• water absorption
• Thickness swelling