Abstract
The current production of wood composites relies mostly on formaldehyde-based adhesives such as urea formaldehyde (UF) and phenol formaldehyde (PF) resins. As these resins are produced from non-renewable resources, and there are some ongoing issues with possible health hazard due to formaldehyde emission from such products, the purpose of this research was to develop a formaldehyde-free plywood adhesive utilizing waste protein as a renewable feedstock. The feedstock for this work was specified risk material (SRM), which is currently being disposed of either by incineration or by landfilling. In this report, we describe a technology for utilization of SRM for the development of an environmentally friendly plywood adhesive. SRM was thermally hydrolyzed using a Canadian government-approved protocol, and the peptides were recovered from the hydrolyzate. The recovered peptides were chemically crosslinked with polyamidoamine-epichlorohydrin (PAE) resin to develop an adhesive system for bonding of plywood specimens. The effects of crosslinking time, peptides/crosslinking agent ratio, and temperature of hot pressing of plywood specimens on the strength of formulated adhesives were investigated. Formulations containing as much as 78% (wt/wt) peptides met the ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) specifications of minimum dry and soaked shear strength requirement for UF resin type adhesives. Under the optimum conditions tested, the peptides⁻PAE resin-based formulations resulted in plywood specimens having comparable dry as well as soaked shear strength to that of commercial PF resin.