Adhesives free bark panels: an alternative application for a waste material

The proportion of bark in tree trunks is in the range of ~ 10–20%. This large amount of material is currently mainly considered as a by- or even waste-product by the timber processing industry. Recently, efforts towards the use of bark have been made, e.g. as a raw material to harvest different chemical compounds or as an additive for wood particle boards. Our motivation for this work was to keep the bark in an almost natural state and explore alternative processes and applications for use. The traditional method of de-barking tree trunks by peeling was used to harvest large bark pieces. Two pieces of peeled bark were placed crosswise, with the rhytidom side (outer bark) facing each other. After different conditioning steps, bark pieces were hot pressed to panels without adding adhesives. These experiments on bark samples of different Central European tree species suggest that production of panels with species dependent properties is possible and feasible. This is a step towards producing sustainable panels by using a natural waste material, while retaining its beneficial structure and its natural chemical composition.

树木树干中树皮的比例约为10%-20%。目前，木材加工行业主要将这一大量材料视为副产品或甚至废弃物。近年来，人们开始尝试利用树皮，例如将其作为提取不同化学成分的原料或作为木质颗粒板的添加剂。我们进行这项工作的动机在于保持树皮处于近乎自然的状态，并探索其作为替代材料的应用过程。本研究采用了传统的剥皮方法来收获大块树皮，即将两块剥下的树皮横放，其皱纹面（外层树皮）相互朝向。经过不同的预处理步骤后，将树皮块进行热压成板，无需添加粘合剂。这些对不同中欧树种树皮样本的实验表明，生产具有物种特异性的板材是可行且可行的。这是利用天然废弃物生产可持续板材的重要一步，同时保留了其有益的结构和天然化学成分。