A study of the mobility of formaldehyde during hot-pressing of particleboard mattresses

Abstract

This study aims to provide information on the mobility of formaldehyde within a mattress of particles during hot-pressing. To this end, adhesive-free mattresses of virgin wood particles, which contain either a small dose of formaldehyde solution or slices of ‘old’ particleboard placed in one corner of the mattresses, were hot-pressed, cut into standard samples and then tested via EN 717-2. The results indicate that formaldehyde is mobile such that the emission levels across the samples were fairly consistent. Strips that contained high quantities of old furniture, however, still exhibited higher emissions than samples that did not contain old furniture particleboard.

Keywords:

• Formaldehyde
• Hot-pressing
• Particleboard

Acknowledgements

This study is part of the project ‘WoodSens’ – Developing and implementing formaldehyde online-sensor systems in wood-based panel processing, which is supported by the WoodWisdom ERA-Net. The research contained in this paper was specifically supported by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries in France and the Xyloforest project in France (ANR-10-EQPX-16).