Investigating the use of hybrid populus (euphratica-alba) cultivar of “Mofid” in particle board production

Cultivation of fast-growing industrial trees is one of the solutions to overcome the wood resources lack. To invest optimally in this field, some cases such as annual growth rate of the cultivated species, species adaptation to the climate of the region, adaptation to the soil of the culture site, and also the quality of the produced wood and its applicability in lignocellulosic industries must be regarded. One of the recently introduced extremely fast-growing poplar cultivars is the Mofid hybrid poplar (Populus euphratica Oliv. × P. alba L.). Since low-density wood and wood waste, are used as the main source in the particle board production, in this study, the use of 4-year-old “Mofid” hybrid poplar wood as raw material in particle board production was investigated. To make particle board, the screened chips had been resined with 12% resin by a rotary gluer and then pressed for 5 min at a temperature of 170°C and a pressure of 32 kg/cm2. The examined tests included density, thickness swelling, bending strength, and internal bonding strength. The results showed that the produced particle board samples with “Mofid” poplar wood had acceptable mechanical and physical properties and they were more or less similar to the paulownia particle board samples (control group).