Fixation of Soft-inner Part of Oil Palm Trunk by Close System Compression Method

Abstract

Compression by closes system compression (CSC) improved quality of the soft-inner part of oil palm trunk (S-OPT). The problem of compressed-wood was spring back or recovery of set, if it was exposed to moisture content. The objective of these study were to evaluate the recovery of set (RS) and weight loss (WL) of S-OPT by CSC. These methods were compared with heat treatment (HT) and steam treatment (ST). Density of S-OPT was 0.3 g/cm3. All samples were compressed to compression ratio of 50%. The compression of HT method used the temperatur of 120, 140, 160, 180 and 200 °C for 0, 10, 30, 60 and 180 minutes; and ST method used temperature of 120, 140, 160, 170 and 180 °C for 0, 5, 10 and 30 minute; while CSC method used temperature of 120, 140, 160, 180 and 200 °C for 0, 10, 20, 30 and 40 minutes. The results showed that the temperature and compression time contributed to the RS and WL value for all methods. Increasing compression temperature and time leads to decreased the RS value and to increased the WL value. The lower RS value indicated that S-OPT fixation would be better or high dimensional stability. Fixation of S-OPT by ST method was achieved at temperature of 170 °C for 30 min, CSC at temperature of 180 °C for 30 min, while HT method has not fixated until 200 °C for 180 min.