Impregnation of Hardboard with Poly(methyl methacrylate)

Abstract

Abstract The increasing deficiency of natural woods has led to the use of agricultural residues in the preparation of pulp and boards. The important agricultural residues are bagasse, straws, and cotton stalks, which accumulate in vast amounts. Some studies concerning the use of bagasse (Lumen et al., 1963), rice straw (Mobarak et al., 1975; Fadl et al., 1984), cotton stalks (Mobarak and Nada, 1975), and other agricultural residues (Lathrop and Naffziger, 1949; Aronosky and Lathrop, 1949) for producing hardboards are available. Actually, resins are added to pulp before board formation to give a final board of high strength and water resistance. The common resins are phenol-formaldehyde, urea-formaldehyde, and melamine- formaldehyde. Also, in one of our previous works, whole black liquor (Nada et al., 1982), produced from rice straw pulping process or its separated components (lignin, hemicellulose, and silica) (El-Saied et al., 1982) in the presence or absence of phenol-formaldehyde resin during hardboard...