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SUGAR
CANE WASTE TURNED INTO PANEL PRODUCTS
Increasingly,
agricultural residues are being used to manufacture construction panel
products such as particleboard and the sturdier, more costly medium density
fiberboard (MDF). In January, the Acadia Board Company of New Iberia,
Louisiana will begin producing particleboard made from bagasse, the fibrous
portion of sugar cane stalks that remains after removing the juice. The
plant will use 50,000 tons of bagasse to produce 18 million square feet
of 3/4-inch board. The bagasse comes from the nearby Cajun Sugar Cooperative,
which processes sugar cane from 95 farmers. Although there are five other
bagasse-to-particleboard plants in the world, this is the first in North
America. Acadia Board's product, called DuraCane, falls between the categories
of particleboard and MDF, as do many agricultural fiber-based boards.
DuraCane is expected to exceed ANSI standards for particleboard, but doesn't
meet all of those for MDF. DuraCane is bonded with MDI (methylene diphenyl
diisocyanate), a formaldehyde-free resin. DuraCane's applications include
ready-to-assemble furniture, kitchen and bath cabinets, and laminate flooring.
Clip from:
The Carbohydrate Economy, Fall 99, p 14.
For more information, email: [email protected]
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INDONESIA'S
LECES, MITSUI STARTUP BAGASSE PULP MILL
PT Kertas
Leces (Surabaya, Indonesia) in cooperation with Mitsui Corp and PT Arya
of Indonesia reports that it has started up its new, $200 million pulp
mill in Lampung, Indonesia, using bagasse as the raw material.
Moh. Adnan,
Leces' finance director, said that some of the mill's production is captive
to the company's paper mill and the remainder is exported. He added that
it has produced some 10,000 metric tons since startup, using bagasses
collected from sugar factories in the region, such as PT Gula Putih Mataram
and Indo Lampung. The pulp mill is expected to be operating at full capacity
next year, with a daily production of 200 metric tons.
PT Kertas
Leces has four pulp mills and an integrated paper mill that produces 640
m.t./day of various types of paper, including tissue paper, bond paper,
photo copy paper, newsprint, and industrial paper.
Edited
by: Ken Patrick
Clip from: Pulp and Paper Online, February 28, 2000
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