Fabrication of naturally derived wood products by thermal flow molding of wood powder with sucrose and citric acid

Abstract

Thermal flow molding of wood powder was carried out with a natural binder consisting of sucrose and citric acid (SC binder) for fabricating wood products without synthetic resins. The testing of thermal flow and molding of the wood powder with SC binder was done to analyze the effect of added SC binder, as well as to optimize the molding conditions, such as temperature, binder content, and mixture ratio of the sucrose and citric acid. The wood powder with SC binder flowed successfully at an optimum temperature of 180 °C in the thermal flow test. In addition, it was possible to form a composite wood plate by molding with thermal flow, and the moldability was improved by increasing the sucrose ratio in the SC binder. Density, bending strength, and thickness swelling after water immersion of the plate molded under the optimum molding conditions were 1.4 g/cm3 to 1.5 g/cm3, 28 MPa to 37 MPa, and 7% to 10%, respectively. These results indicated a possibility