Pyrolysis characteristics of poplar particleboards containing UF resins

TG and DTG analysis was used to evaluate the influence of UF resins during the pyrolysis of waste particleboards in this paper. Poplar wood, particleboard and UF resin were studied with the heating rate of 20 ℃/min. Results showed that the process of three samples could be mainly divided into three stages: dehydration, fast pyrolysis and slow degradation. By assuming fist order reaction model, the activation energy of wood was 70.21 kJ/mol, particleboard was 46.45 kJ/mol and UF resin was 54.86 kJ/mol. Similar pyrolysis characteristics were found in wood and particleboard. However, the degradation rate of particleboard (141%/min) was much lower than that of wood (22.1%/min) and UF resin (21.7%/min). Compared with wood, there was a lateral shift to higher temperature in DTG curves for particleboard. It can be concluded that the thermal stability of particleboard is enhanced by UF resin and the degradation is inhibited by UF resin, especially during the second stage.