Development of Pine Bark and Acacia Bark for Particleboard Adhesive Based on Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunches

Abstract

Organic adhesive particleboard has the opportunity to be developed to replace particleboard with formaldehyde adhesives which can be detrimental to health. Acacia bark (ATB), pine bark (PTB), and empty fruit bunches of oil palm (EFB) are by-products that have no economic value but have potential as raw materials for particleboard. This study aims to determine particleboard's physical and mechanical properties based on EFB with adhesive ATB and PTB and reduce using formaldehyde adhesive. The combination of using PTB and ATB powder for particleboard adhesive is a novelty in this research. The composition of the particleboard consists of 20-30wt% ATB and PTB powder with 80-70wt% EFB and 5−6% moisture content. The length of EFB fiber used is 0.1−2.0 cm, and the size of ATB and PTB powders is that it passes 40 mesh sieves and is retained by 50 mesh. Hot press time 15-25 minutes. Quality assessment is carried out using Japanese Industry Standard A 5908-2015 for panel products. The test results show that the particleboard meets the standard and prove that ATB and PTB can be used as organic adhesives and have great potential to replace non-organic adhesives.