Dr. Laurent Matuana

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Project Summary:

        Michigan’s forests have abundant underutilized hardwood species.  The growth of hardwoods exceeds removal by a ratio of 2.3 to 1 and this trend is expected to continue.  This timber resource can be expected to provide a steady raw material source for the current and proposed new plants in the state.  However, a better technology of utilization must first be developed to promote the use of eastern hardwood resources.  In addition to the increased growth rate of low commercial value hardwoods, the nation's forest products industry (both primary and secondary manufacturing) is facing a critical problem in disposing of millions of tons of adhesive-coated wood sawdust produced annually.  Because of the increasing governmental regulatory measures to protect the environment, alternatives to current land filling and incineration practices need to be examined.  The long-term goal of the proposed research project is to develop a process to utilize eastern hardwood species and wood sawdust from hardwood waste of furniture industry as raw materials in the manufacture of commercially viable and value-added products such as wood-plastic composites and their foams.  Successful outcome of this study will provide the forest products industry with a market for the adhesive-coated wood sawdust generated during sanding and the multiple machining operations.

Key Words:

hardwood, sawdust, wood plastic composites, extrusion, foaming, mechanical properties

Current Projects:

        The long-term goal of the proposed research project is to develop a process to utilize eastern hardwood species and wood sawdust from hardwood waste of furniture industry as raw materials in the manufacture of commercially viable and value-added products such as wood-plastic composites and their foams.  The specific objectives that must be achieved to accomplish the aforementioned goal are:

1. Characterize the surface of wood sawdust in terms of chemical compositions (Chemical elemental, functional groups, and their concentrations), surface energies, acid-base properties, and specific surface area;

2. Evaluate the effects of wood sawdust species and particle size on the melt flow index, mechanical properties, and durability (decay and UV resistance) of extruded wood/plastic composites;

3. Establish the relationships between the surface characteristics of the wood sawdust and the physico-mechanical properties of the composites in order to identify the major factors that govern the performance of the wood/plastic composites and also identify the fundamental mechanism governing adhesion in these composites;

4. Investigate the influence of chemical foaming agent types and contents as well the effect of extruder processing conditions (extruder speed rate and die temperatures) on the melt flow index (MFI) and cell morphology of extrusion foamed composites;

5. Characterize the mechanical properties of foamed samples as a function of cell morphology;

6. The successful outcome of this study will provide the forest products industry with a market for the wood sawdust generated during sanding and the multiple machining operations.

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