Anis Mokhtar

Manufacture and properties of oil palm particleboard

Malaysia has a total of more than 4 million hectares of oil palm plantation. Besides the palm oil, the industry generates massive quantities of oil palm trunks (OPT), oil palm fronds (OPF) and empty fruit bunch (EFB) available from replanting and through routine field and mill operation. With a 25 years rotation of planting regime, 70,000 hectares is due for replanting every year and it is estimated that about 21.63 million cubic meters (14 million tones) of oil palm trunk will be available. If this raw material is not utilized properly they will be a source of environmental concern. This paper discussed the manufacture and properties of particleboard made from oil palm trunk particles. The oil palm trunk (25 yrs old) was supplied by MPOB, Bangi, Selangor. The trunk was converted into strands using a disk flaker and into particles by passing through a dust extractor. Single layered UF board and three-layered board were made and their properties determined. Boards make from unscreened particles with 700kg/m3 density, 12% resin content and without wax have the highest MOR (26.76 MPa) and MOE (2843 MPa) values. Lowest MOR & MOE values was exhibited by boards produced from PS of >1.0 mm with 500kg/m3 density, 8% resin content and 1% wax. Highest IB (1.54 MPa) was shown by boards made from >1.0 mm PS with 700 kg/m3 density, 12% resin and without wax. No boards were able to meet all the requirements of the BS Standards. Particleboard can be made from oil palm trunk particles, however further studies have to be conducted to improve their properties.

Oil Palm Biomass for Various Wood-based Products

Publisher Summary Based on the research and development findings by Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) and various agencies, oil palm biomass has a great potential as a raw material for producing products for the wood-based industry. The product quality showed that it is comparable with the products made from tropical wood. However, in the process line and parameters, it needs to be adjusted accordingly based on the oil palm biomass characteristic as compared with normal wood. One of the alternative raw materials for some of the products that have traditionally been made from wood is felled Oil Palm Stems (OPT), a sustainable non-wood source that is available in abundance at replanting operations. In spite of their availability, the commercial use of OPT to act as raw materials for the manufacture of plywood, sawn lumber, and fiber-based biocomposites has yet to reach the desired level. The commercial exploitation of oil palm trunks for a variety of products depends on a number of factors. These include a long security of sustainable supply, the economic system for handling them, and a reliable design of processing and manufacturing equipment to cater for their physical forms and sizes.

Effects of Resin Content Dosage, Density and Wax Addition on the Physical and Mechanical Properties of Particleboard from Oil Palm Trunk

This study investigates the effects of resin dosage, board density and wax addition on physical and mechanical properties of oil palm trunk particleboard. The oil palm trunk was harvested from FELDA Ulu Jempul, Pahang and flaked to produce the particles. The particles were blended with urea formaldehyde (UF) as a binder and added with wax in order to enhance board dimensional stability. The oil palm trunk particleboards are consolidated at temperature of 165 °C with pressure cycle of 1800, 1200 and 500 psi for six minutes. Mechanical properties, namely, modulus of rupture (MOR), modulus of elasticity (MOE), internal bonding (IB), physical properties of water absorption (WA) and thickness swelling (TS), are tested according to Japanese Industrial Standards (Particleboard, Japanese Standards Association, Japan, 2003). The results for different resin contents show that the particleboards with 12% resin content have given better performance in physical and mechanical properties as compared to 10% and 8%. Besides, the results for different densities show that the mechanical properties of particleboards improve as the density increases which was the particleboard with density 600 kg/m3 with MOR and MOE of 6.81 and 957.17 MPa, respectively, which gives the best performance. Addition of 1% wax was improve the physical properties of the board from 15.6 to 36.9%. However, wax addition gives negative impact on the mechanical properties of particleboard.

Life cycle inventory of oil palm lumber production: A gate-to-gate case study

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been applied in the Malaysian oil palm industry since 2010. It is important to ensure that this main industry is ready to meet the demands and expectations of European market on the environmental performance of the oil palm industry. In addition, oil palm biomass, especially oil palm trunk (OPT) are abundantly available after replanting every year. In order to maximize the usage of OPT as a green product, it can be converted to palm lumber as a value-added product. Palm lumber act as a basis product from OPT before it is converted to panel product such as plywood, sandwich board and so on. However, the LCA study on palm lumber production is still scarce in Malaysia. Hence, this paper aims to perform and collect the inventory data for palm lumber production, which is known as Life Cycle Inventory (LCI). A gate-to-gate system boundary and the functional unit of 1 m3 of palm lumber produced have been used in this study. This inventory data was collected from three batches of the production cycle. The inputs are mainly the raw materials which are the OPT and the energy from diesel and electricity from the grid. Generally, each consumption of input such as energy and fossil fuel were different at each stage of palm lumber production. Kiln-drying represents a prominent stage in terms of energy consumption, which electrical use in the dryer represents 94% of total electrical grid consumption as compared to another stage of palm lumber production. By adding the inventory information especially in the downstream sector of biomass industry, hopefully it can improve the sustainability of oil palm industry in Malaysia.Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been applied in the Malaysian oil palm industry since 2010. It is important to ensure that this main industry is ready to meet the demands and expectations of European market on the environmental performance of the oil palm industry. In addition, oil palm biomass, especially oil palm trunk (OPT) are abundantly available after replanting every year. In order to maximize the usage of OPT as a green product, it can be converted to palm lumber as a value-added product. Palm lumber act as a basis product from OPT before it is converted to panel product such as plywood, sandwich board and so on. However, the LCA study on palm lumber production is still scarce in Malaysia. Hence, this paper aims to perform and collect the inventory data for palm lumber production, which is known as Life Cycle Inventory (LCI). A gate-to-gate system boundary and the functional unit of 1 m3 of palm lumber produced have been used in this study. This inventory data was collected from three batches of t...

Life cycle inventory for palm based plywood: A gate-to-gate case study

The oil palm industry heavily relies on the world market. It is essential to ensure that the oil palm industry is ready to meet the demands and expectation of these overseas customers on the environmental performance of the oil palm industry. Malaysia produces 13.9 million tons of oil palm biomass including oil palm trunk (OPT), frond and empty fruits bunches (EFB) annually. OPT felled in some oil palm plantations during replanting is transported to various industries and one such industry is the plywood factories. In order to gauge the environmental performance of the use of OPT as plywood a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study was conducted for palm based plywood. LCA is an important tool to assess the environmental performance of a product or process. Life cycle inventory (LCI) is the heart of a LCA study. This LCI study has a gate-to-gate system boundary and the functional unit is 1 m3 palm plywood produced and covers three types of plywood; Moisture Resistance Plywood (MR), Weather Boiling Proof Plywood...