Vol. 8, Issue 11, Part N (2024)

Eucalyptus is one of the most valuable and planted tree species in India due to its multifarious uses. Eucalyptus belongs to Myrtaceae family. Wood work on particle boards in India was initiated at Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, Uttarakhand in 1950s and a large number of wood raw materials have been assessed for their suitability for making particle boards. The major uses of particle board such as core material in most of the furniture, in store fixtures and laminates, in sink tops and sliding doors, cabinets, cupboards, loudspeakers panel, tape recorder, in the automobile construction, packing cases, sports goods, in bodies of buses, in railway coaches, and in ship building etc. In particle board production, there are various factors that affecting the physical and mechanical properties of the board. On the other hand, one major source of lignin is the black liquor, a waste by product obtained during pulping of various fibrous raw materials in paper mills. At present, most of the paper mills are burning this black liquor for recovery of the pulping chemicals and some of the small paper mills are throwing away black liquor as effluent in the nature which is harmful for the environment. Thus, there is a need of proper utilization of black liquor as a substitute or blending in the binding adhesive due to large availability from paper mills. Therefore, the present research was conducted to find out the suitability of Eucalyptus hybrid wood waste as raw material for particle board in Phenol Formaldehyde based adhesive blended with black liquor in five different ratios to meet out the requirement of IS specification. The binding resin was prepared by taking phenol and black liquor in five ratios (treatments) viz., 100:0, 90:10, 80:20, 70:30 and 60:40. The result showed that the internal bonding strength and modulus of rupture and other wood properties meet out all the requirements of Indian Standard Specification for the production of particle board from the Eucalyptus. Therefore, particle boards prepared from Eucalyptus waste are durable and also cost effective, where lignocellulosic waste can be properly utilized. Thus, it implies with some extent particle board can be used to reduce the cost of PF by partial replacement with black liquor up to 30 percent. The finding of the present study is also recommended to the particle board manufacturing industries as well as pulp and paper manufacturing industries in India.