Recovering fibres from fibreboards for wood polymer composites production

ABSTRACT

In most countries, fibreboards are not recovered after utilization but burned for energy production. This study aims at recovering fibres from industrial fibreboards and reusing them as reinforcement elements in wood polymer composites (WPC). Recovered fibre (RF) material was generated by the thermo-hydrolytic disintegration of medium and high density fibreboards bonded with urea-formaldehyde resin. Various formulations of RF and polypropylene were used with or without the addition of the coupling agent to manufacture WPC using a co-rotating extruder. Test specimens were produced via injection moulding whereby those containing ‘virgin’ fibres served as a reference with respect to mechanical and physical properties. WPC formulations containing RF and ‘virgin’ fibres exhibited similar results, but composites containing RF exhibited improved mechanical and water-related properties, especially without coupling agent. The study indicates that recovered fibres are suitable to produce WPC with very similar physico-mechanical properties as those from ‘virgin’ fibres.

KEYWORDS:

• Cascade use
• fibreboard
• MDF
• wood polymer composite
• recycling
• mechanical properties
• physical properties
• thermo-hydrolytic disintegration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [GRK 1703] for the Research Training Group ‘Resource Efficiency in Interorganizational Networks – Planning Methods to Utilize Renewable Resources’.