Gypsum bounded board production reinfoced with Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) pruning residues fibers

In this study, chemical properties of Date Palm residues including cellulose and hemi cellulose content, Lignin content, Extractive and Ash content were determined, and also its physical properties including fiber dimension were measured according to D-2395 ASTM method. The boards made for this study contained 25% lignocellolosic material, Date Palm pruning residues (both fibers and chips) and 75% Gypsum powder. Variable factors were lignocellolosic materials (fibers and chips at different proprotion (0:100, 5:95, 10:90, 15:85, and 20:80). Totally, 15 boards were manufactured, and samples of all the boards made were tested after curing for 14 days by the methods of Japanese Industrial Standard - R9111 to obtain mean values of Bending strength (MOR), Bending stiffness (MOE), Internal bond strength (I.B), thickness swelling (TS) and water absorption (WA). Gypsum particleboard (GPB) has high thickness swelling (TS), high water absorption (WA), and low mechanical properties compared with GPB reinforced fibers. The properties of GPB were improved by adding fibers. The experimental results showed that GPB with the added fibers had good physical and mechanical properties compared with those of gypsum particleboard with no added fibers. On the other hand, based on the achieved results both mechanical and physical properties of boards increarse with increasing the fiber proprotion. It can be concluded that Date palm fibers are a good material as reinforcement for the manufacture of Gypsum bounded board.