A. Petutschnigg

Fachhochschule Salzburg · MSc Program in Forest Products Technology and Management

Formaldehyde-free tannin-based furanic foams were prepared by applying infrared radiation (IR) as an alternative energy source. Up to now, tannin-based rigid foams have been produced via heat conduction or microwave radiation energy. The present innovative heating system allows for the production of extra-light products with low density (≤ 50 kg/m³...

Kosovo, located in the heart of the Balkans, was formerly a part of Yugoslavia. The breakup of Yugoslavia led not only to the creation of new countries and borders; it also had a huge impact on the transpor-tation and availability of raw materials and goods. Kosovo's forest products industry has been greatly affected by the country's current politi...

The aimof this study is to analyze the properties of Paulownia tomentosa x elongata plantation wood from Serbia, considering the influence of the stem height (0 to 1 m and 4.5 to 6 m above soil level—height spot) and radial position from the pith to bark (in the core, near the bark, and in between these zones—cross-section spot). The results show t...

Key message The TreeTrace_spruce database contains images and measurements of 100 Norway spruce ( Picea abies (L.) H.Karst.) logs from Northeastern France, each about 4.5 m long. The image database includes RGB images of large and small ends of the logs and hyperspectral and computed tomography (CT) images of wood discs sampled at both log ends. Th...

The proof of origin of wood logs is becoming more and more important. In the context of Industry 4.0 and to combat illegal logging, there is an increased interest to track each individual log. There were already previous publications on wood log tracing using image data from logs, but these publications used experimental setups that cannot simulate...

The current research intended to investigate the suitability of different choline-chloride-based deep eutectic solvents for their role in microwave lignin extraction. Lignin, a widely spread biopolymer in plants and woody structures, is a valuable replacement for fossil-fuel-based materials. While some promising applications have been trialled alre...

The aim of this research is the characterization of physical and mechanical properties of Paulownia sawn wood from three plantation sites in Europe, namely Spain, Bulgaria and Serbia. As a fast-growing wood species, Paulownia has a significant positive forecast for the European markets and a wide range of possible applications that still need to be...

Increasing concerns toward climate change and fossil fuel-based products have opened the race toward viable alternative feedstocks, which could be utilized as alternatives for omnipresent chemicals such as fuels and polymers. Lignin is among one of the most promising candidates. Besides its promising chemical characteristics, it has also been put i...

The addition of tree bark extracts, commercial tannin powder and a tannin-based polymer to cattle manure was investigated for its influence on the gaseous emission and nitrogen conservation potential for 28 days. In lab trials with ammonia solution as reference, the retention of ammonia was 13%, 40% and up to 65% for untreated solution, spruce bark...

Rising energy and raw material prices, dwindling resources, increased recycling, and the need for sustainable management have led to growth in the smart materials sector. In recent years, the importance and diversity of bio-based adhesives for industrial applications has grown steadily. This article focuses on the production and characterization of...

The aim of this study is to investigate the production of fire-resistant panels made out of bark from spruce (Picea abies), larch (Larix decidua Mill.) and cement. This research included test panels produced from bark, cement, water and cement-bonded recycling material aiming for the target density of 750 kg/m3. The physical (density, dimension sta...

This research presents the influence of two different cellulose (hydrophobic pretreated/non-pretreated) and one flax-fiber unidirectional nonwoven low areal weight fiber reinforcements on the mechanical properties of urea-formaldehyde bonded five layered beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) plywood as an alternative to commonly used synthetic fiber reinforce...

Traceability of round wood from the forest to the industry is a crucial issue to secure sustainable material usage as well as to optimize and control processes over the whole supply chain. There are previous works on individual wood log tracing but there is no systematic and complete technology to track individual logs from the forest to the indust...

Due to climate change, ceiling paintings in many historic buildings are subjected to increasingly high short-term temperature change, resulting in high thermal tension caused by the construction assembly. This article focuses on the combined use of timed IR imaging and numeric modelling to evaluate insulation measures on the upper side of a ceiling...

The aim of this study is to investigate the suitability of spruce and larch bark for the production of cement-bonded composites. At the beginning of this research, the curing behaviour of the admixtures was quantified with temperature profiles when testing spruce, larch, pine and poplar bark, to determine the compatibility between the components of...

As lignin is becoming more and more attractive to industry and the circular economy continues to grow, the utilization of a byproduct that, to date, has been underrated by the wood industry is investigated as an abundantly available source of lignin. Bark from spruce, larch and beech tress is extracted using the organosolv process with and without...

This study identifies the importance of reducing press times by employing high-frequency pressing of spruce-laminated timber bound with sustainable casein adhesives. Spruce lamellas with dimensions of 12 × 10 × 75 cm were bonded into five-layered laminated timber and then separated into single-layer solid wood panels. Three types of casein (acid ca...

Book of Abstracts from the Processing Technologies for the Forest and Biobased Processing Industries (PTF BPI) 2021

Peat moss (sphagnum) is a commonly used sealant, fill, and insulation material in the past. During the efforts to rewet drained moors due to ecological considerations, the technical use of peat moss (sphagnum farming) again became the focus of attention. In the framework of this investigation, insulation panels consisting of peat moss, bound with u...

With the increasing demand for food worldwide, the use of fertilizers in the agricultural industry has grown. Natural fertilizers derived from the use of animal manure slurry, especially cattle and cow, are responsible for 40% of the agricultural ammonia emission. The EU defined the goal to reduce NH3 emission drastically until 2030, yet until toda...

In order to improve the acceptance of broader industrial application of flax fiber reinforced beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) plywood, five different industrial applicated adhesive systems were tested. Epoxy resin, urea-formaldehyde, melamine-urea formaldehyde, isocyanate MDI prepolymer, and polyurethane displayed a divergent picture in improving the me...

The proof of origin of logs is becoming increasingly important. In the context of Industry 4.0 and to combat illegal logging there is an increasing motivation to track each individual log. This work presents a two-stage convolutional neural network (CNN) based approach for wood log tracing based on digital log end images. First, the log cross secti...

With increasing demand of alternatives to oil-based lightweight materials, the development of tannin-based foams is getting more and more attention. In this paper, an alternative to tradi-tionally used solvent-evaporation in the production of tannin-foams is presented. Mixing the tannin-furanic resin with different amounts of ionic and non-ionic su...

Tree bark is a by-product of the timber industry available in large amounts, considering that approximately 10% of the volume of a tree stem is bark. Bark is used primarily for low-value applications such as heat generation or as mulch. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first one that scrutinises thermal insulation panels made from sp...

Planer shavings (PS) are side-products generated during the processing of solid wood, typically used for heating, packaging, or insulation purposes. PS has been used for decades in particleboard manufacture, particularly in the core layer. The aim of this research is to investigate the use of PS with a length over 4 mm in low-density one-layer part...

Wood extractives have an influence on different material properties. This study deals with the changes in wood extractives of larch sapwood due to two different low doses of energy irradiations. Electron beam irradiation (EBI) and γ-ray irradiation treatments were done by us�ing two industrial processes. After the different modifications the extrac...

The authors developed and elaborated on a new method to release ski bindings by utilizing an industrial robot to simulate release movement showing a spatial repeatability of ± 0.06 mm. The parametric programming of the release parameters gave free control while executing repeatable release tests. A series of different motion patterns were performed...

Citation: Barbu, M.C.; Montecuccoli, Z.; Förg, J.; Barbeck, U.; Klímek, P.; Petutschnigg, A.; Tudor, E.M. Abstract: Brewer's spent grain (BSG) is the richest by-product (85%) of the beer-brewing industry, that can be upcycled in a plentiful of applications, from animal feed, bioethanol production or for removal of heavy metals from wastewater. The...

The proof of origin of logs is becoming increasingly important. In the context of Industry 4.0 and to combat illegal logging there is an increasing motivation to track each individual log. Our previous works in this field focused on log tracking using digital log end images based on methods inspired by fingerprint and iris-recognition. This work pr...

The aim of this study is to investigate the formaldehyde content and emissions of bark-based insulation panels bonded with three types of adhesives: urea formaldehyde, melamine urea-formaldehyde, and tannin-based adhesives. These panels were produced at two levels of density—300 and 500 kg/m3—and a thickness of 20 mm, and the influence of the adhes...

Larch bark is an interesting resource for the production of insulation panels. As it consists of a sugar-rich inner bark and an outer bark containing more durable components, there is the requirement to separate these compartments. Additionally, bark is often mixed with wooden pieces after industrial debarking processes. In this study, the wet dens...

Tannins are eco-friendly, bio-sourced, natural, and highly reactive polyphenols. In the past decades, the understanding of their versatile properties has grown substantially alongside a continuously broadening of the tannins’ application scope. In particular, recently, tannins have been increasingly investigated for their interaction with other spe...

Walnut and hazelnut shells are agricultural by-products, available in high quantities during the harvest season. The potential of using these two agricultural residues as raw materials in particleboard production has been evaluated in this study. Different panels with either walnut or hazelnut shells in combination with melamine-urea formaldehyde o...

Additive Manufacturing represents a quite new material processing technology. Parts are formed by adding material layer by layer until it is finished without requiring any additional tools. Therefore, using Additive Manufacturing can save time and costs in comparison to commercial production methods particularly when manufacturing complex prototype...

The aim of this study is to investigate the performance of casein-based adhesives for the bonding of ash (Fraxinus spp.) veneers for the manufacture of biodegradable skis. Different formulations containing casein powder, water, lime, sodium silicate, and various glue amounts were tested for shear strength after water storage, modulus of rupture and...

Traceability of natural resources, from the cradle to the final product is a crucial issue to secure sustainable material usage as well as to optimize and control processes over the whole supply chain. In the forest products industries the material can be tracked by different technologies, but for the first step of material flow, from the forest to...

Traceability of natural resources, from the cradle to the final product is a crucial issue to secure sustainable material usage as well as to optimize and control processes over the whole supply chain. In the forest products industries the material can be tracked by different technologies, but for the first step of material flow, from the forest to...

A key challenge in applied science when planning a designed experiment is to determine the aliasing structure of the interaction effects and selecting the appropriate levels for the factors. In this study, kernel tree methods are used as precursors to identify significant interactions and levels of the factors useful for developing a designed exper...

Softwood bark is an important souce of biomass, extractive compounds and value-added products. The comminution of larch (Larix decidua Mill.), Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and spruce (Picea abies) bark planks is examined in this study, to give an overview of how to apply this knowledge for upcycled products made of bark, especially for bark-based...

With the extensive use of nitrogen-based fertilizer in agriculture, ammonia emissions, especially from cattle manure, are a serious environmental threat for soil and air. The European community committed to reduce the ammonia emissions by 30% by the year 2030 compared to 2005. After a moderate initial reduction, the last report showed no further im...

Tannin foams are green lightweight materials that have attracted industrial interest for the manufacturing of sandwich panels for insulation purposes. However, the dimensions of the cells and the presence of sulfur in the formulation developed until now have discouraged their upscaling. In this work, we present the synthesis and the characterizatio...

Tree bark is an interesting source for various building and furniture materials. It holds a high number of volatile components—resulting in emissions whose effects on building residents have to be considered. Spruce and larch barks were dried using different methods and prepared as loose particles and panels. The VOC (volatile organic compound) emi...

Many of current bio-based materials are not fully or partly used for material utilization, as the composition of their raw materials and/or possible applications are unknown. This study deals with the analysis of the wood extractives from three different tissue of larch wood: Sapwood mainly from outer part of the log, and sound knotwood as well as...

Ecofriendly wood-based materials are required by consumers at present. Decorative panels are part of a large group of wood-composite materials, and their environmental properties must not be neglected. More environmentally friendly decorative panels can be achieved by various methods. This paper describes a method of production from larch bark. Tre...

In this paper, possible influences of various infill orientations (deposition angles) on specific material characteristics—such as tensile strength, compressive strength, charpy impact strength and heat deflection temperature (HDT)—of fused layer modeling (FLM) processed test specimens were evaluated. Two specially made wood filaments, made of the...

Furfuryl alcohol (FA) and lactic acid (LA) are two of the most interesting biomolecules, easily obtainable from sugars and hence extremely attractive for green chemistry solutions. These substances undergo homopolymerization and they have been rarely considered for copolymerization. Typically, FA homopolymerizes exothermically in an acid environmen...

See https://ojs.cnr.ncsu.edu/index.php/BioRes/article/view/BioRes_14_3_5807_Wagner_Identification_Antimicrobial_Compounds_Larch. Larch bark is an undervalued material, but it has unique and valuable characteristics and compounds. The objective of this study was to extract and characterize molecular compounds of bark materials from different larch...

Acacia Mimosa or black wattle (Acacia Mearnsii) industrial tannin extracts are used as such for leather tanning, water flocculants, adhesives and many other applications. However, when higher purity of the polyphenols is requested, these extracts are not suitable anymore. Therefore, feasible strategies have to be developed in order to improve the p...

The ability to detect the special-cause variation of incoming feedstocks from advanced sensor technology is invaluable to manufacturers. Many on-line sensors produce data signatures that require further off-line statistical processing for interpretation by operational personnel. However, early detection of changes in variation in incoming feedstock...

Tannin-and lignin-furanic foams are natural porous materials that have attracted high interest in the scientific and industrial communities for their high thermal and fire-resistant properties. However, no interesting solutions have been proposed for the management of their end-life as yet. In this study, the phenolic-furanic powders derived from t...

Raw materials of annual plants fibres are not easily usable for industrial production applications. Pre-treatment of the annual plant fibres is necessary to increase the homogeneity of the material and to improve the material properties. This study deals with the influence of steam explosion treatment on the quality of annual plant fibres used as i...

Leather-wood fibreboards are innovative composite materials, which combine together the high mechanical properties of wood with the superior fire behaviour properties of leather. This study deals with the understanding of the combustion mechanism of the wet-white leather panel. During burning, an overlay coating-like surface is formed on top of a f...

This study deals with the influence of electron beam irradiation (EBI) on the wettability of Norway spruce surface samples. To evaluate this possible effect in detail, the changes in chemistry and wood structure were analysed using the methods of IR spectroscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The surface wettability was determined by the c...

Amongst polyphenols, tannins belong to the most effective chemical protection systems against biological attack on trees. Tannins are water-soluble and are thus leached out easily when used for wood protection. In situ polymerized tannin-hexamine wood preservatives have better leaching resistance (LR), but they do not resist weathering. In this stu...

This study presents an ensemble of predictive models with a focus on the predictive capabilities of Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART). Predictions are made for Modulus of Rupture (MOR) and TensileStrength(IB or Internal Bond) from a wood composites manufacturing process for three product types. Given the large number of predictor variables...

The current trend for sustainable utilisation of limited resources is stimulating the scientific research for previously neglected raw materials that could also be used for new value added products. Bark, which is a natural insulation material of trees, could be used as technical insulation material. This paper focuses on the effects of particle or...