Bark-Based Panel Adhesive

Supported by a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Louisiana-Pacific Corporation (newly renamed LP) has teamed up with Ensyn Group, Inc. to develop an adhesive from tree-bark for use in OSB and plywood. LP produces about one-quarter of the OSB manufactured in the U.S. and consumes a similar portion of the 4 billion pounds (1.8 billion kg) of phenolic resins produced annually. Ensyn is a leader in research and development of wood-based chemical products. According to Jim Spaeth, DOE project manager, the LP-Ensyn proposal was one of four awardees from a total of 47 proposals.

The chemical process for making bark into an adhesive product is about two decades old, according to Mike Pacheco, a research engineer managing the bark adhesive project for LP. Barry Freel, President and Chief Technical Officer of Ensyn, adds, “The problem has been that the manufacturing approaches were usually an afterthought consisting of by-product lignin and filler material from something like pulp production.” The results were of poor quality with lots of variation in the properties of the material. “Ensyn has the know-how