Effects of Resin Content Dosage, Density and Wax Addition on the Physical and Mechanical Properties of Particleboard from Oil Palm Trunk

Abstract

This study investigates the effects of resin dosage, board density and wax addition on physical and mechanical properties of oil palm trunk particleboard. The oil palm trunk was harvested from FELDA Ulu Jempul, Pahang and flaked to produce the particles. The particles were blended with urea formaldehyde (UF) as a binder and added with wax in order to enhance board dimensional stability. The oil palm trunk particleboards are consolidated at temperature of 165 °C with pressure cycle of 1800, 1200 and 500 psi for six minutes. Mechanical properties, namely, modulus of rupture (MOR), modulus of elasticity (MOE), internal bonding (IB), physical properties of water absorption (WA) and thickness swelling (TS), are tested according to Japanese Industrial Standards (Particleboard, Japanese Standards Association, Japan, 2003). The results for different resin contents show that the particleboards with 12% resin content have given better performance in physical and mechanical properties as compared to 10% and 8%. Besides, the results for different densities show that the mechanical properties of particleboards improve as the density increases which was the particleboard with density 600 kg/m3 with MOR and MOE of 6.81 and 957.17 MPa, respectively, which gives the best performance. Addition of 1% wax was improve the physical properties of the board from 15.6 to 36.9%. However, wax addition gives negative impact on the mechanical properties of particleboard.