Performance of particleboards based on annual plant byproducts bound with bio-adhesives

Abstract

Because the timber market is more and more competitive, the particleboard manufacturers are looking for new sources of plant raw material. In the same time, the use of healthier, safer and more environmentally friendly materials becomes a priority in the building sector. In this context, using bio-based adhesives to bond the particles instead of the synthetic ones is an interesting alternative. In the same time agricultural byproducts as annual plant stems can be a sustainable alternative raw material. These resources are abundant, renewable and safe raw material. Moreover, their porous structure gives them interesting properties for building materials such as lightness and thermal insulation capacity. Two agricultural byproducts abundant in France have been studied: flax shives and sunflower bark. Particleboards were made at laboratory scale by thermocompression of the plant raw particles to a target density of 500 kg m−3. The plant particles were bond by different methods:- * without addition of any adhesive. In that case water was sprayed on the plant particles before the forming process and was evaporated during the thermocompression. It leads to extraction of soluble and lignocellulosic compounds from the agroresources that can act as adhesives.- * with addition of a biobased adhesive based on casein, the protein from bovine milk, or based on a commercial caseinate, added at different ratios to the plant particles.- The effect of the type of agroresources, the particle size, the formulation of the biosourced adhesive, and its application are evaluated testing the physico-chemical properties of the particleboards: mechanical properties (bending test and internal bond), thermal properties, and behavior towards water and fire. Using a biobased adhesive improves the mechanical properties of the particleboards significantly compared to the version without added adhesive. Panels made with flax shives generally showed better properties than with sunflower bark, so flax shives seem more suitable for particleboard manufacturing. But after optimization of the formulation and the process, both raw materials could be used with casein-based adhesive yielding efficient and fully biobased particleboards for applications such as furniture or door panels.