Formaldehyde emission wood-based panel products

Formaldehyde Emissions Hardwood Plywood and Certain Wood-Based Panel Products... 

Lines of demarcation between hardwood plywood, softwood plywood and certain other wood based panel products have become less distinct in recent years. One of the most important distinctions in respect to formaldehyde emission potential is that softwood plywood is typically bonded with phenol-formaldehyde while hardwood plywood is typically bonded with urea-formaldehyde. Phenol-formaldehyde adhesives are more stable and have less tendency to emit formaldehyde than do urea-formaldehyde adhesives. Some important features of hardwood plywood ... 

Emission of volatile noxious chemicals from wood-based panels during their production can be caused by chemicals inherent to wood itself, like terpenes or free acids, as well as by volatile compounds and residual monomers of the adhesive. The emission of formaldehyde as well as free phenol effluents is a matter of concern. 

Brown (1999b) reported formaldehyde and VOC emissions from new, unfinished particleboard and MDF (both using urea formaldehyde resins) in Ausbalia. Formaldehyde emissions over the first three weeks exhibited first-order decay behavior that predicted little to no formaldehyde emission after 6 months. However, further emission measurements at 8 months showed the products sbll emitted formaldehyde at approximately one-half the new product rate (also further unpublished measurement at 2 years showed the same emission rate as at 8 months). It was concluded that the wood-based panels emitted formaldehyde by a double-exponen-ttal model, the early- to late-term emissions including the free formaldehyde in the products but the long-term emissions consisbng of only the formaldehyde... 

In China, formaldehyde emission of the pressed-wood products sold is generally high. A test showed that the average formaldehyde release rates of four kinds of typical wood-based panels, i.e., particle board, medium-density... 

Limit of formaldehyde emission of wood-based panels and finishing products... 

Emission of monomers. Volatile organic compounds (VOC), formaldehyde during production of the wood-based panels and during their use... 

The main parameter for the application of tannins as adhesives for wood-based panels is the content of reactive polyphenols and the reactivity of these components towards formaldehyde. Tannins can be used as adhesives alone (with a formaldehyde component as crosslinker) or in combination with aminoplastic or phenolic resins. These resins can react chemically with the tannin component in a polycondensation reaction, form only two interpenetrating networks, or both. The simplest adhesive mix formulation consists of the tannin solution and powdered paraformaldehyde as crosslinker [283]. The addition of paraformaldehyde can cause in the short term a relatively high level of formaldehyde emission. Glue mixes using paraformaldehyde for the production of particleboards with low formaldehyde emission are described and used industrially [284]. In the literature a large number of papers describe the combinations of tannins with synthetic resins (Table 14). 

Melamine-based resins with extreme low molar ratios [F/(NH2)2 < 0.5] can be used as so-called formaldehyde scavenger resins (81). They are mixed mainly with UF resins during the application for the production of wood-based panels with low subsequent formaldehyde emission. 

The earliest wood adhesive for mass produetion of panels was phenol formaldehyde (PF). This is widely used for products designed to perform in severe weathering eonditions and dominates the exterior plywood market. Resorcinol formaldehyde is a somewhat similar resin system that cures at ambient temperatures, but the cost is much higher, limiting its use in high-volume applications. These systems, although formaldehyde-based, do not have the continuing formaldehyde emission problem that is associated with other formaldehyde-based systems. 

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