Activities carried out during June and July
Part of the job we have been carrying out in June and July at BeonNAT: harvesting with a special mulcher and manufacturing particleboard
We have been busy the last months! As you know, 10 tree and shrub species were selected already to restore marginal lands, and afterwards we started working in other activities of the project. At BeonNAT we have partners at several countries with different case studies in regions from 3 countries and in each of them, specific species were already planted in Spain, Germany and Romania.
In this occasion we want to talk about the work carried out in Soria (Spain) during the month of June. In the pictures below you can see the crops planted before in the area, within the BeonNAT project. Different species are being harvested in order to extract raw materials to elaborate bio-based by-products. So, with the help of TBA mulchers from CEDER-CIEMAT, some parts of the trees and shrubs are being collected to assess their potential to become by-products.
TBA mulchers are special biomass mulchers, which recover pruning and vegetation waste in forests and green spaces. They carefully cut and collect all the vegetation needed to proceed with the project activities without harming the environment or the rest of the crops. You can see more pictures of the Juniperus communis and the TBA mulchers bellow:
After harvesting, this feedstock is used to investigate the by-products for the potential final products . For example, CESEFOR has started manufacturing particleboards out of some of the selected species.
Manufacturing particleboard
In this case, CESEFOR has obtained some examples with Robinia pseudoacacia, Ulmus pumila, Cistus ladanifer, Betula pendula and Cytisus scoparius. If you want to see the whole process of the manufacture step by step, you can watch the complete video on Twitter here.
One of the priorities of the wood particleboard industry is to eliminate the formaldehyde emissions from the process. At CESEFOR, they are measuring them with all the species of the project through the UNE-EN 717-3 method. Here is the complete process:
- Suspension of particleboard samples on closed jars with distilled water.
2. The samples are incubated at 40º for 3 hours.
3. The water is collected in jars and cools down.
4. The formaldehyde in the water is determined photometrically through the acetylacetone method.
This is part of what BeonNat team has been working on this last month and a half. In case you missed it, we put all the work done during the last 2 years in a very illustrative infographic that you can find here. Also, if you don’t want to miss anything about the project, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
