ES2595929A1 - Corn thistle board (Machine-translation by Google Translate, not legally binding) - Google Patents

Abstract

The board object of the invention consists of a board manufactured from pit of ground, cut or whole corn, mixed or not with thermosetting resins and applying a manufacturing process of the boards similar to that used in medium density fibers. (Machine-translation by Google Translate, not legally binding)

Description

SPANISH OFFICE OE 07/13/201501/07 / 2015PATENTS AND TRADEMARKS

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ENTRY

Dashboard. corn kernel.

Object of the invention.

The present invention refers to a board made from natural fibers, specifically using corn kernels, crushed, cut, whole, with excellent properties as acoustic and thermal insulator, which can be used in construction, and which essentially provides characteristics of novelty and notable advantages over other similar materials known and used for the same purposes according to the current state of the art, especially with regard to the absorption of sound waves.

Background of the invention.

The process of manufacturing composite boards from raw materials derived from wood and other natural raw materials is well known. Thus, different types of boards are currently manufactured, such as particle board of wood particles, commonly called "particle board". (PB), medium density fibreboard (MDF), oriented strand board (05B), etc. All these types of board are commonly used in construction and especially in the manufacture of furniture and interior elements.

Each of the aforementioned types of board has, in turn, different classifications, both derived from variations in its physical-mechanical properties and from modifications on the base product for different applications. On the market, there are varieties of bare boards or boards whose surface appearance has been improved by means of different coatings, being common papers impregnated with melamine resins, natural wood veneers, PVC laminates, decorative polyester laminates, lacquers, varnishes. , or textile coverings. Boards with special features for specific applications are also commonly manufactured. Thus, we have low-density, high-density, water-repellent, fire-retardant boards, etc.

The differential characteristics of these boards come in some cases from differences in some phase of the manufacturing process, while in other cases

They derive from differences in the raw materials used, or from the previous treatment F.OEPM01 / 07 / 2015F.Effective Application No. 13/07/2015 that is carried out on them.

The good properties of boards in general, as well as their lower cost, have meant that their production and use has continued to increase in recent years, increasingly replacing solid wood in more and more uses.

At the present time there is a growing concern about the availability of wood for domestic and industrial applications, and the production of this type of board has led to an increasingly important use of recycled material, mainly from waste from woodworking industries. first transformation of wood. However, even a shortage of waste of this type is already beginning to be noticed, which translates into an increase in prices and a greater difficulty for a sustainable supply. This situation has meant that, in recent years, alternatives for the development of boards have been studied using other types of natural fibers, such as wheat and rice straw.

There are plants for agricultural use and an annual cycle whose residues may be capable of being used in the production of boards. This possibility is attractive both from an economic point of view and from an environmental point of view and from a social point of view. An economic, ecological and social sustainability is achieved, by managing to value an agricultural residue as a raw material in the industry, being also a use that does not interfere with the food chain, not being usable for food or human or animal.

On the other hand, in the field of application of boards there is a need to respond to increasingly demanding needs. Specifically, in the field of construction, the appearance of more restrictive regulations, which allow better comfort conditions, require the development of high-performance products, which have, at the same time, the characteristic of being respectful with the environment, which are recycled. bias, versatile and low cost.

The combination of these needs has led to this invention combining several of the current challenges of the panel manufacturing sector, the agricultural sector, and the construction sector, and the environmental moments, focusing our interest on the stone of corn, as the ideal element to respond and solve them. On the one hand, the need for natural fibers for the manufacture of the boards, protecting and preserving the current forest mass; on the other, adding value to an agricultural residue, difficult to manage; and, finally, achieving a natural, ecological, sustainable product, with an extraordinary capacity for acoustic absorption and thermal insulation, 2

directly applicable in the field of construction with multiple and important F.OEPM01 / 07 / 2015F.Effective Application No. 13/07/2015 advantages over the materials used today.

Description of the invention.

The board object of the invention consists of a board made from crushed, cut or whole corn kernels, mixed or not with thermosetting resins and applying a board manufacturing process similar to that used for medium-density fibers.

Specifically, the present invention refers to the use of corn kernels as raw material to be used for the manufacture of boards or panels, but not limited to medium density fibreboards and chipboards, and using UF resins, MUF resins, isocyanates or other binders, or without binders, and pressed into boards or panels. The present invention has a certain basis in the investigation that the corn kernel has an excellent ability to be agglomerated, both with small amounts of resin, or even without binders, resulting in a product in the form of a board or panel with a few excellent physical-mechanical, acoustic absorption and thermal insulation properties, of great value for its application in construction.

As an additional invention, boards or panels of corn kernels have been made alone and mixed with other binder fibers, obtained by mechanical refining, either by composing the base material, either as a mixture of materials, or by making panels of alternate, well-differentiated layers, composed each one of a type of material.

Among the advantages of the developed product are:

•

The consumption of solid wood decreases, reducing the pressure on the exploitation of forests.

•

Availability of maize kernels as agricultural residue from annual crops.

•

Recovery of a waste, solving the additional problem of ecological disposal by recycling an agricultural waste

•

Available in sufficient quantities for the possible manufacturing demand due to the abundance of this crop and economic because it is a waste product, which implies an ecological and sustainable industrial process.

•

Good physical-mechanical characteristics of the boards or panels.

•

Good machining characteristics.

•

Excellent aesthetic appearance that would allow its use without coatings, which again means economic savings and a reduction in the use of potentially aggressive paints and varnishes against the environment.

•

Good dimensional stability.

•

Excellent acoustic absorption properties, well above the materials currently used in construction.

•

In this invention, various processes / methods have been designed to produce boards from corn kernels. They are described below, sinquot; limit its scope. The first one includes the following steps:

~ Selection, cutting, crushing and purification of the corn kernel.

~ Selection of stones, stone pieces or stone particles according to their granulometry and the needs for the manufacture of the boards

~ Conditioning of the elements of the previous point to begin the mixing process (homogenization of humidity ,,,.).

~ Mixture of the previously mentioned elements with UF or MUF resins, isocyanates ,,,.

~ Preforming the panel by applying cold pressure when necessary.

~ Pressing the mixture by applying hot pressure (one or more cycles) at the same or different temperatures and pressing and curing times.

The corn kernel can be cut and ground with hammer or knife mills using different sieves to make the selection of granulometries. The conditioning of the particles is necessary to achieve homogeneous humidity in the material. Good results have been achieved with humidity around 8% -16%. A cold pressing process is carried out prior to hot pressing, eliminating part of the air in the mixture, increasing its density and favoring densification in the hot pressing phase.

• The second method / procedure includes the following steps:

~ Selection, cutting, crushing and purification of the corn kernel. F.OEPM01 / 07 / 2015F.Effective Application No.13 / 07/2015

~ Selection of stones, stone pieces or stone particles according to their granulometry and the needs for the manufacture of the boards

~ Conditioning of the elements of the previous point to start the mixing process (homogenization of humidity, ...).

~ Mixture of the previously mentioned stone elements with vegetable fibers obtained by means of a mechanical defibration process or other procedure. Fibers from other origins and even synthetic fibers could also be used.

~ Addition of UF or MUF resins, isocyanates, ... to the stone-fiber mixture.

~ Preforming the panel by applying cold pressure when necessary

~ Pressing the mixture by applying hot pressure (one or more cycles) at the same or different temperatures and pressing and curing times.

The corn kernel can be cut and ground with hammer or knife mills using different sieves to make the selection of granulometries. The conditioning of the particles is necessary to achieve homogeneous humidity in the material. The fiber has been obtained from wood (pine, eucalyptus, poplar, etc.) through a mechanical shredding process, but the use of other types of fiber with different origins and even the use of a percentage of synthetic fiber is not ruled out. . The mixture of materials comprises different proportions of the components, using in the tests carried out to date approximately 80% corn kernel and 20% fiber. A cold pressing process is carried out prior to hot pressing, eliminating part of the air in the mixture, increasing its density and favoring densification in the hot pressing phase.

• The third method / procedure includes the following steps:

~ Selection, cutting, crushing and purification of the corn kernel.

~ Selection of stones, stone pieces or stone particles according to their granulometry and the needs for the manufacture of the boards

~ Conditioning of the elements of the previous point to start

the mixing process (homogenization of humidity, ...). F.OEPM01 / 07 / 2015F.Effective Application No.13 / 07/2015

~ Mixture of the previously mentioned stone elements at different V granulometries, if applicable, with vegetable fibers obtained through a mechanical shredding process or other procedure. Fibers from other origins and even synthetic fibers could also be used.

~ Addition of UF or MUF resins, isocyanates, ... to the stone binder with different granulometries or to the mixture with other binders if applicable.

~ Formation of layers of material of different granulometry and different fibers if applicable, making a {{sandwichquot; type board, with the outer faces composed of material with a granulometry lower than the inner layer.

~ Preforming the panel by applying cold pressure when necessary.

~ Pressing the mixture by applying hot pressure (one or more cycles) at the same or different temperatures V pressing times V curing.

The corn kernel can be cut and ground with hammer or knife mills using different sieves to make the selection of granulometries. The conditioning of the particles is necessary to achieve homogeneous humidities in. the material. The fiber has been obtained from wood (pine, eucalyptus, poplar, etc.) through a mechanical shredding process, but the use of other types of fiber with different origins and even the use of a percentage of synthetic fiber is not ruled out . The mixture of materials comprises different granulometries and proportions of the components. A cold pressing process is carried out prior to hot pressing, eliminating part of the air in the mixture, increasing its density V favoring densification in the hot pressing phase. The layers of material are made up of stone particles V of other binding fibers where appropriate, of different granulometries, being arranged in the outer layers of the boards with lower granulometry.

Examples that demonstrate the invention are listed below, without limiting its scope of application.

Description of the figures

Figures 1, 2, 3 and 4 represent different panel configurations based on the different alternatives available for their manufacture. In detail 1 of the figure

You can see the structure of the board using particles and pieces of stone of F.OEPM01 / 07 / 2015F.Effective Application No. 13/07/2015 corn of different granulometries. The detail of figure 2 allows observing the arrangement of the corn particles mixed with fibers.

Figure 3 represents the board manufactured in layers of different granulometries alone or mixed with other fibers or particles. Layers 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the detail correspond to different materials or mixtures.

In figure 4, the material is arranged in Sandwich type layers, alternating the different materials or mixtures (1 and 2).

Production of the reference boards:

Reference boards have been investigated and formed in the laboratory using conventional techniques, using particles and pieces of corn kernel of different granulometries, obtained by crushing the kernels of the cobs in an electric mill and their subsequent filtering in a column of sieves. that separated it according to the size of the particles and at the same time purifies the material eliminating impurities. In some tests, the particles and pieces of the stone mixed with wood fiber have been used, which was obtained through a mechanical shredding process starting from pine and eucalyptus wood. In these experiments, the thicknesses sought in the boards were between 10 mm and 18 mm, and three types of binders were used: UF resins, MUF and MOL resins. The first resins were used at levels of the order of 12% in their catalyzed form on dry basis, and MOl was used at a 3% level also on dry basis. The humidity of the material ranged between 10% and 15%. Pressing temperatures were between 160ºC and 200ºC. Depending on the type of board to be manufactured and the characteristics, granulometries and humidity of the base materials, excellent results were achieved by applying from one to four pressing cycles. The pressures ranged from 8 kg / cm2 to 40 kg / cm2, depending on the characteristics of the mixture and the pressing cycle. The cold pressing process was carried out with pressures between 5 kg / cm2 and 20 kg / cm2.

In each case, several replicas of the boards were produced, determining their physical-mechanical properties by various procedures, including Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, and especially analyzing their specific density with X-rays and their absorption characteristics with impedance tubes.

7

Claims (6)

1.

Corn kernel board characterized in that it contains crushed, cut or whole kernel corn, mixed or not with thermosetting resins such as UF, MUF resins, isocyanates or natural resins or their mixtures.

two.

Manufacturing process of Corn kernel board characterized in that it is manufactured essentially from kernels or ears of corn, and may contain other elements, according to the following stages:

•

Obtain the particles, pieces of kernel or whole kernel of corn, processing it by cutting or chopping by grinding, separating and selecting different granulometries at the same time that the samples are purified by eliminating impurities.

• Submit the particles to a moisture homogenization process.

•

Mix with a binding agent (UF, MUF, isocyanates or natural resins or their mixtures) the materials that will make up the board, just a kernel of corn on the cob or mixed with other fibers or vegetable particles, or of other non-vegetable origin, including synthetics. .

• Arrange the material in the position where the board will be formed.

•

Subject the assembly to a cold pressing process and subsequently to a hot pressing process, with different pressures, temperatures and pressing and curing times, so that the bonding agent reacts.

3.

Process for the manufacture of corn kernel board, according to claim 2, characterized in that a mixture of fibers or particles obtained by a mechanical shredding procedure or another similar procedure for the same purpose is added to the stone-resin mixture, being able to also be used in the mixture fibers or particles of other origin, including synthetic.

Four.

Process for manufacturing corn kernel board according to claims 2 and 3, characterized by arranging the corn kernel particles in several layers of different granulometries, alone or mixed with other fibers or particles.

5.

Manufacturing process of corn kernel board according to claims 2, 3 and 4, characterized in that its structure is formed by layers of board type {(sandwichquot ;.

Fig. L OR Fig. 2 __ .· ____.·_-1 -. two Fig. 3 Fig. 4