Development and material properties of new hybrid plywood from oil palm biomass

Published Date
Materials & Design
January 2010, Vol.31(1):417–424, doi:10.1016/j.matdes.2009.05.040

• Author 

• H.P.S. Abdul Khalil ^a,,
• M.R. Nurul Fazita ^a
• A.H. Bhat ^a
• M. Jawaid ^a
• N.A. Nik Fuad ^b

• aSchool of Industrial Technology, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia
• bSchool of Housing and Planning, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia

Received 1 April 2009. Accepted 30 May 2009. Available online 9 June 2009. 

Abstract

Shortage of wood as a raw material has forced wood-based industries to find alternative local raw materials. Currently, oil palm biomass is undergoing research and development (R & D) and appears to be the most viable alternative. This work examines the conversion of oil palm trunk (OPT) and oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) into new plywood and analyses its properties. We prepared five-ply veneer hybrid plywood (alternating layers of oil palm trunk veneer and empty fruit bunch mat) with different spread levels (300 g/m² and 500 g/m²) of resins (phenol formaldehyde and urea formaldehyde). We then studied the mechanical and physical properties of the plywood. The results show that hybridisation of EFB with OPT improves some properties of plywood, such as bending strength, screw withdrawal and shear strength. The thermal properties of the plywood panels were studied by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The panels glued with phenol formaldehyde with a spread level of 500 g/m² showed better thermal stability than the other panels. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to study the fibre matrix bonding and surface morphology of the plywood at different glue spread levels of the resins. The fibre–matrix bonding showed good improvement for the hybrid panel glued with 500 g/m² phenol formaldehyde.

Keywords

Hybrid plywood [B]

Oil palm trunk veneer [A]

Empty fruit bunch [A]

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• ⁎ 
  Corresponding author. Present address: Division of Bioresource Technology, School of Industrial Technology, University Science Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia. Tel.: +60 4 6532200; fax: +60 4 657367.

Copyright © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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