Contact: Kaichang Li, Oregon State University (United States)
Summary
This project aims to develop a commercially-viable wood adhesive for CLT that is free of formaldehyde and isocyanates and possesses good cure speed properties. Li and his team have successfully developed adhesives for plywood manufacturing using abundant, inexpensive and renewable soy flour. This adhesive mimics the superior bonding properties of mussel additive proteins. Emission of hazardous air pollutants from plywood plants that use this adhesive has dropped 50-90 percent. Development of such an adhesive for CLT would address increasingly stringent air quality regulations in many places such as Oregon and California. The existing chemical formulation for the plywood adhesive will be adapted for use in a cold-pressing process. Specimens will be created at the OSU wood composites labs and first tested to verify conformance with the PRG320 product standard for CLT. Specimens passing the tests will be sent to the Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratory at the University of Oregon, Portland, where they will be conditioned and tested to determine emission characteristics.