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11èmes journées du GDR 3544 « Sciences du bois » - Nice, 16-18 novembre 2022
Poster B16
195
A study of end-of-life fibreboards:
their characteristics and availability in Europe
IRLE Mark1, BELLONCLE Christophe1, Julia BUCHNER1, Abbey HERNDON2, Julian
MARCADET2, LEBRETON Flore1
1 Laboratoire Innovation Matériau Bois HAbitat (LIMBHA)
2 École Supérieure du Bois
flore.lebreton@esb-campus.fr
Key words: recovered wood; recycling; MDF; secondary raw material
Context and objectives
Three main types of wood-based panels exist: particleboard (wood-based panels made with
wood particles), plywood (wood-based panels made with wood veneers) and fibreboard. The
EN 316 norm defines a wood fibreboard as a “panel material with a nominal thickness of 1.5mm
or greater, manufactured from lignocellulosic fibres with application of heat and/or pressure”
(AFNOR 2009). Made through a wet- or dry process, they are commonly used in furniture,
flooring, construction…
Medium Density Fibreboard (MDF) is the type of fibreboard which is the most produced. The
first European MDF was manufactured in 1973 (Williams 1995). Global MDF production is
now over 100 million m3 per year (Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’Alimentation et
l’Agriculture 2022), which leads to a large amount of waste. Currently there is no commercially
viable method to recycle post-consumer MDF. They are, however, an increasingly important
part of the recovered wood stream. European particleboard manufacturers incorporate an
average of 44% of recovered wood in their panels (European Panel Federation 2021).
Consequently, MDF waste is currently and somewhat unintentionally recycled into
particleboards.
The production of MDF has grown exponentially and it is logical that the quantity of MDF
waste will also increase exponentially. The rapid growth in the quantity of MDF waste implies
that the proportion of MDF in the recovered wood stream will also increase. Studies have shown
that particleboards made with recovered wood containing a large proportion of MDF residues
have lower mechanical properties (Lee et al. 2022). Indeed, the larger is the part of end-of-life
MDF in recovered wood stream, the less is the industrial interest of using this secondary raw
material to create new particleboards.
This last observation is the “technology push” of EcoReFibre project. The project will
demonstrate a novel technology that is capable of sorting recovered wood in to three fractions:
solid wood, fibreboards, and others. The separated fibreboard, which includes MDF, will be
used to demonstrate viable recycling technologies for post-consumer MDF. One of the tasks is
concerned with improving a TMP refining process to obtain quality fibres which can then be
used for making new products (into new fibreboards or into insulation boards).
The thesis will determine the current and predict the future availability of waste fibreboard in
Europe and characterise the fibres it contains with a view to their subsequent re-use. Such
information is needed to help convince stakeholders to invest in the project’s technologies. The
described work is concerned with understanding how much fibreboard is in the current wood
waste stream.
11èmes journées du GDR 3544 « Sciences du bois » - Nice, 16-18 novembre 2022
Poster B16
196
Material and methods
A first collection of recovered wood was carried out in the region of Pays de la Loire in summer
2022. This collection focused on “class B” and “Déchets d’Eléments d’Ameublement bois”
(DEA). 210 kg of wood particles were sieved with an 8 mm and a 4 mm mesh sieves. The
particles retained on the 8 mm sieve were then hand separated (picked) in to 4 fractions:
fibreboards, other panels (plywood, OSB and particleboard), solid wood and non-wood.
The poster will include some results of this part of the study.
References
AFNOR (2009) NF EN 316. Norme européenne. B 54-050. AFNOR.
European Panel Federation (2021) Annual Report 2020-2021.
Lee S.H., Lum W.C., Boon J.G., Lubos Kristak L., Petar Antov P., Marta Pędzik M., Tomasz
Rogoziński T, Taghiyari H.R., Adly Rahandi Lubis M., Fatriasari W., Manohar Yadav S.,
Chotikhun A., Pizzi A. (2022) Particleboard from Agricultural Biomass and Recycled Wood
Waste: A Review, Journal of Materials Research and Technology 20:4630‑58. doi:
10.1016/j.jmrt.2022.08.166.
Organisation des Nations unies pour l’alimentation et l’agriculture (2022) FAOSTAT,
FAOSTAT. Consulted (https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FO).
Williams W (199) The panel pioneers: an historical perspective, Wood Based Panels
International, September 16, 6.
