PAPER making! FROM THE PUBLISHERS OF PAPER TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL ® Volume 10, Number 2, 2024
“Life cycle assessment of wood - based panels: A review”, Daniele Costa, João Serra, Paula Quinteiro & Ana Cláudia Dias, Journal of Cleaner Production , Vol.444, 10 March 2024, 140955. Wood-based panels are products used in various applications with the potential to replace energy-intensive materials while promoting carbon sequestration. This article aims to systematically review the scientific literature assessing the impacts of wood-based panel manufacturing from a life cycle perspective. It intends to identify different methodological choices and challenges, compare impacts on the climate change impact category and provide recommendations for future assessments. The reviewed articles were identified using search strings in the Web of Science and Scopus databases, focusing on the different wood-based panel sub-types (veneer sheets, plywood, particleboard or chipboard, fibreboard). In total, 53 articles were selected for qualitative and 36 for quantitative synthesis. Most articles were published in the United States of America, Spain, Brazil or China, which are among the largest wood-based panel producers. This study's assessment shows that the published articles' methodological choices varied widely, specifically concerning the functional unit, system boundaries, procedures to deal with multifunctionality, biogenic carbon modelling and impact assessment methods. Further, its quantitative synthesis reveals considerable variability in the results, even within the same panel subtype. Laminated veneer lumber tends to be the least carbon-intensive wood-based panel. However, a lack of uniformity in previous articles' methodological choices precludes comparisons of results. For this reason, elaborating Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR) for wood-based panels to harmonize methodological choices is critical for obtaining comparable results regarding multiple environmental impact categories. “Enhancing oriented strand board performance using wheat straw for eco -friendly construction”, Hani Abobakr, Marya Raji, Hamid Essabir, Mohammed Ouadi Bensalah, Rachid Bouhfid & Abou el kacem Qaiss, Construction and Building Materials , Vol.417, 23 February 2024, 135135. Wheat straw is an abundant and cheap agricultural by-product. This research aims to produce an outperform-oriented strand board utilizing wheat straw for sustainable construction. The produced rectangular specimens via the compression molding process were tested in terms of mechanical, hygroscopic, morphological, and sound isolation performances. The results compared to the commercial (OSB) EN 300: 2006 standard showed excellent mechanical properties in wheat straw-based panels with a density of 0.60g.cm −3 , with a remarkable 44.61% increase in flexural strength and 42.2% improvement in Young's modulus over wood- based OSB. Taking into consideration the hygroscopic properties, wheat straw-based boards showed superior swelling resistance, with WS-OSB-0.45 leading the way with a 23% reduction compared to commercial OSB. Water absorption was inversely related to density, with WS-OSB-0.60 reducing water absorption by 8.9% compared to commercial OSB. The contact angle measurements showed that wheat straw-based panels (WS-OSB- 0.60 at 106° and WS-OSB-0.45 at 100.4°) had more hydrophobic surfaces than commercial OSB (88.1°). The wheat straw-based OSB panels, especially WS-OSB-0.45, achieved remarkable sound reduction, with an overall sound reduction value of 35.2dB, outperforming WS-OSB-0.6 (34.9dB) and commercial OSB (34dB). These results demonstrate the viability of using wheat straw residues as an environmentally friendly alternative to wood in the production of panels for building, furniture manufacturing, and equipment packaging applications.
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Technical Abstracts
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