Mechanical Properties of Rice Husk Flour-Wood Particleboard by Urea-Formaldehyde Resin

  • Lee, Young-Kyu (National Instrumentation Center for Environmental Management, College of Agriculture and Life Science, Seoul National University) ;
  • Kim, Sumin (National Instrumentation Center for Environmental Management, College of Agriculture and Life Science, Seoul National University) ;
  • Yang, Han-Seung (National Instrumentation Center for Environmental Management, College of Agriculture and Life Science, Seoul National University) ;
  • Kim, Hyun-Joong (Laboratory of Adhesion & Bio-Composites, Department of Forest Products, College of Agriculture and Life Science, Seoul National University)
  • Received : 2003.01.06
  • Accepted : 2003.02.17
  • Published : 2003.06.26

Abstract

The objective of this research was to investigate the possibility of using rice husk flour as a partial substitute for the wood particles used as the raw material for manufacturing particleboards, by examining the physical and mechanical properties of the rice husk flour-wood particleboard as a function of the type of urea-formaldehyde resin used. Commercial wood particles and two types of rice husk flours (A type (30 ㎛), B type (300 ㎛)) were used. E1 and E2 class urea-formaldehyde resin was used as the composite binder, combined with 10 wt.% NH4Cl solution as a hardener. Rice husk flour-wood particleboards with dimensions of 27×27×0.7 (cm) were manufactured at a specific gravity of 0.7 with rice husk flour contents of 0, 5, 10, and 15 (wt.%). We examined the physical properties (specific gravity and moisture content), mechanical properties (three point bending strength and internal bonding) of the composite. In general, it can be concluded that composites made from rice husk flours are of somewhat poorer quality than those made from wood; however, blending in small amounts of rice husk flour (e.g., 5% to 10% by weight) may have no significant impact on quality.

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Acknowledgement

This work was supported by Korea Research Foundation Grant (KRF-2000-G0078). H.-S. Yang was supported by graduate fellowships from the Ministry of Education through the Brain Korea 21 Project.