Recycling of secondary materials into products – Work Package 3
OBJECTIVES
- Demonstrate at industrial scale the valorisation of secondary materials from WP2 into novel improved products for furniture and building construction: particleboards, biocomposites, fibreboards, and insulation products.
- Determine the performance of these products to steer and optimise the manufacturing process and settings.
Industrial manufacturing of panels and other products using recycled fibres
This work package focuses on scaling up from lab to industry. Recycled fibres and fines, produced by employing novel technologies (see Work package 2), are fed into the manufacturing processes of EcoReFibre partners. These partners produce MDF and insulation products, or, with respect to fines, particleboards or construction blocks.
In industrial panel manufacture, fibres or fines are mixed with glue and formed into a mat. The mat is then hot-pressed into a board, where the application of heat causes the glue to harden. This is a continuous process that handles large volumes of material. For instance, and MDF production line can have an output of 2000 m³ of boards per day.
Like the boards produced in the lab, the panels from industrial production are tested for mechanical properties and moisture uptake. Beyond these tests, the panels are milled with equipment typically employed in furniture manufacturing to evaluate their machinability. All results are fed back into the respective development and optimisation work to further improve the novel technologies.
Fines from waste wood for established and novel products
Fines are a key ingredient in the surface layers of particleboards, as they ensure smoothness and appropriate density. EcoReFibre also introduces two novel products made entirely from recycled fines without addition of virgin wood. The first, Cyclic Thin Board (CTB), has a thickness of about 3 mm and is suitable for use in furniture backs. The second, Bioblocks, are designed for construction applications. These blocks are made by mixing fines with water and a bio-based binder, forming the resulting mass into moulds that are cured at high temperature. The finished building blocks exhibit excellent mechanical properties and high water resistance.
List of products made by EcoReFibre:
- From recycled fibres:
- MDF (medium density fibreboard)
- HDF (high density fibreboard)
- Rigid insulation board
- Flexible insulation board
- Bulk insulation
Novel products: Building blocks and Cyclic Thin Board (CTB)
From recycled fines: Particleboard