Recycled polystyrene with UF addition as the binder for particleboard: effect of binder percentage

This study investigates the utilization of recycled polystyrene (RP) in combination with urea-formaldehyde (UF) resin as a binder for particleboard manufacturing. The primary focus is to evaluate the influence of varying binder percentages on the mechanical, physical, and thermal properties of the resulting particleboards. The motivation behind this research lies in the sustainable use of recycled materials in the composite panel industry, aiming to reduce environmental impact and enhance resource efficiency. In this study, will characterized the properties of wood dust impregnated with urea formaldehyde (UF) as a binder, and evaluated the physical and mechanical properties of wood composites made from rubber wood, by producing wood composites mixed with UF, for the use of wood dust for samples first 90% wood 10% UF, second sample 80% wood 20% UF and third sample 70% wood 30% UF with polystyrene for all three samples mixed with water to see the difference produced. Evaluations include rubber wood dust leakage tests, TGA, XRD, and FT-IR, as well as wood composite bending and water absorption tests. This study shows that the sample with lower UF is more compatible with the polystyrene mixture than other samples, where it has a high bending which is 6.918 while the other samples are only 5.410 for 20% UF and 4.285 for 30 % UF. However, the water absorption is opposite where the use more UF is much better which is 30% use of UF is only 26.72% after soaking for 24 hours while the other is 28.76% for 20% UF and 30.04% for the sample of 10% use of UF.