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Feasibility of manufacturing hardboard from short-rotation intensively cultured Populus

1986; Forest Products Society; Volume: 36; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

2376-9637

Gary C. Myers, John B. Crist,

Forest Management and Policy

A hybrid poplar, Populus Tristis No.1, grown under short-rotation intensive culture, was inves­ tigated as a possible raw material source for the manu­ facture of hardboard. All aboveground material was chipped, and a portion of the chips was upgraded with vacuum airlift segregation to remove some fines and bark. Debarked aspen stemwood was used as a control. All chips were fiberized in a small pressurized single­ disk refiner, and medium- and high-density hardboards were made from the pulps by both the wet- and dry­ forming processes. Two resin contents were used in each type of hardboard manufactured. Hardboards were evaluated for strength properties and dimension change, and test results were analyzed statistically. Results indicate that intensively cultured Populus raw material is suitable for manufacturing hardboards. Manufacturers of hardboard, like those in other forest products industries, will find the raw material supply increasingly more costly and difficult to obtain in the future. Nontraditional sources of raw material will have to be found to meet future demand. One way to meet this demand is to increase the production of wood fiber on a given land area. For this purpose, wood fiber produced by short-rotation intensive culture (SRIC) may be very effective (5). Properties of juvenile, rapidly grown, whole-tree raw material will differ from more traditional hard­ board furnishes (9). Therefore, research is necessary to determine if SRIC material is suitable as a hardboard furnish. Furthermore, large quantities of bark in the raw material might be detrimental to hardboard prop­ erties (4,10), and the smaller diameter SRIC trees and branches have a higher percentage of bark than mature stemwood. However, raw material can be separated into components through processes such as the vacuum air­ lift segregation (VAS) system developed at the Forestry Sciences Laboratory, Houghton, Mich. (7,11). Thus, separation may allow SRIC materials to be utilized for hardboard manufacture. The possibility of utilizing SRIC material in several products—not including hardboard—has already been investigated (5,6). This leads to the present study with the following objectives: 1) determine the strength and dimension-change properties of hardboard manu­ factured from a hybrid poplar grown for 6 years using SRIC; 2) compare strength and dimension-change prop­ erties of the previous hardboards to those manufactured from identical chips that were also VAS improved; and 3) compare strength and dimension-change properties of hardboards manufactured from debarked, mature aspen stemwood to those of whole-tree SRIC Populus hybrid.