The Hadjilucas family founded their company in 1946 as traders in pine resins which were distilled to produce turpentine and the gum rosin used in sizing (glazing and stiffening) paper.
They started with a small factory in Chalkis, 80km north of Athens, and later built a distillation process there to produce the paper size themselves, for the paper industries.
With the growth in the wood panel making business in Greece in the late 1960s/early 1970s, Hadjilucas saw an opportunity and became a producer of formaldehyde, still in the Chalkis factory.
Then during the 1980s, the wood industry in Greece started to move north to take advantage of cheaper and more plentiful supplies of wood from Bulgaria and by 1999, Hadjilucas had decided to relocate its production to a site in Komotini in the north of the country where it has a formaldehyde and resin plant that started production in 2000. It was then expanded in 2002 and today has a capacity of 85,000 tonnes a year of resins.
In the meantime, in 1998 the Greek panel maker Shelman SA bought an 85% stake in the company.
“We are the main supplier to all Greek panel makers as well as exporting to all panel factories in Bulgaria,” said George Diorelis, general manager of Hadjilucas when interviewed in his office in Athens in December 2009. “We also expect to supply Kronospan’s new [particleboard] plant in Serbia when it starts production, probably later this year, as there is no local resin supplier in that country.”
That new formaldehyde and resin production facility in Komotini in 2000 saw the beginning of a strong relationship between Hadjilucas and the resin technology specialist Chimar Hellas of Thessaloniki.
“The design of the plant was by Cal Polymers but it was built for us by Chimar, which continues to give us resin know-how and technical support. As a result of this combination, we are considered to be the most reliable and advanced binder system producer in the region,” said Mr Diorelis. “But Chimar does not only contribute know-how, but quality control systems as well – we work very closely together.”
As part of the Shelman SA group, Hadjilucas has now become part of the Alfa Wood group, following the January 11 approval from the Hellenic Competition Authority of Alfa’s takeover of Shelman, and Mr Diorelis sees this as a positive.
“The Alfa Wood takeover is promising for us. If the market grows as we expect in the future, our sales will also grow. There is also a lot of scope to substitute for imported materials.”
“We have the capacity to cover all current and possible future needs of the Greek panel producers. We are also trying to increase our exports and already have a good reputation in the Bulgarian market, currently covering more than 50% of demand there.”
In common with all manufacturing globally, the last quarter of 2008 showed a steep decline in business for Hadjilucas and most of 2009 was lacklustre, according to Mr Diorelis, although he said the last months of 2009 showed some improvement. Again in common with other manufacturers, the general manager expects that business in 2010 will be at a similar level to 2009.
The Komotini plant
There are two production units at Komotini. The first went into production in 2000, while the second started up in 2002. Both were built by Chimar Hellas, using its knowledge and experience in the industry gained over 32 years.
Inside the production building at Komotini there are two 25m3 reactors used in the production of urea formaldehyde and melamine urea formaldehyde (UF and MUF) resins. There are also two cooling vessels in which the resin is cooled for four hours after the reaction is complete.
Also contained in this building are two smaller reactors of 12/13m3, in which paper impregnating resins are produced, and one 15m3 reactor for UF resin only. Finally there is an 11m3 reactor used in the production of phenolic formaldehyde resins (PF), for which there is lower demand in the market.
The two outdoor plants can produce up to 200 tons /day of formaldehyde at 37% concentration.
Methanol from two storage tanks is passed through a heat exchanger and then into the vapouriser where the methanol vapourises and is then mixed with air. This mixture then enters the main reactor to produce formaldehyde gas. The reaction takes place at about 280oC and the gaseous formaldehyde passes through the heat exchanger to heat the inlet of the reactor. In the process, the temperature of the formaldehyde gas is reduced to 150oC.
That gas then passes to the bottom of a 30m-high absorption column, where the formaldehyde passes up the column and is absorbed into water which is fed into the top of the column, thus producing a formaldehyde solution at the bottom. This is then pumped to outdoor storage tanks.
In order to produce urea formaldehyde concentrate (UFC), urea solution is introduced to the absorption column and mixes with the formaldehyde gas. The resultant UFC is then piped to another, separate, outdoor storage tank.
Gases and air from the top of the absorber columns are recycled into the process in a closed loop system, with 70% returning to the blower at the beginning of the system and 30% being burned in a catalytic converter to produce carbondioxide and water.
Some of the formaldehyde solution produced is sold for use in other industries, such as in medical processes.
The actual production of the UF resin is carried out in the indoor resin reactors in a process in which water and UFC are agitated and heated, producing longer-chain molecules (‘polycondensation’) and thus an increase in viscosity of the mixture. When the required viscosity is reached, the reaction is stopped, the resin cooled down and final urea added before final cooling in the cooling vessels with chilled water.
Dimitris Alexandropoulos of Chimar Hellas explained that this plant is unusual in that steam generated by the formaldehyde process is used to produce chilled water at five to six degrees centigrade, instead of using electricity.
Melamine can also be added to the resin to produce MUF, imparting water-resistance to the resultant panel product and some phenol formaldehyde resin is also produced.

In 1982, Antonios Adamopoulos and Christos Agorastos founded their company, called Thessaliki Xylotechniki, at Tyrnavos, 10km west of Larissa in east central Greece.
These two enterprising men still own one hundred percent of the company, which changed its name to Alfa Wood SA in 1999, but it is a much bigger company today, turning over €50m in 2009 in its Greek companies alone; Alfa Wood also has a subsidiary in Bulgaria.
On December 2, 2009, Alfa Wood confirmed the rumours which had been circulating for some time by announcing that it had bought 72.09% of Greek particleboard and value-added panel product producer Shelman SA for the sum of €11m.
This deal was subject to the approval of the Greek competition authorities, but as the vast majority of Greece’s panel consumption comes from imports – the nation consumes 400,000m3 and makes about 130,000m3 of raw MDF, for example – it was unlikely the takeover would be blocked: It was approved on January 11.
Tyrvanos is still the head office of the Alfa Wood group and this is where the company began by producing kitchen cabinets, wardrobes, sofas – in fact any kind of furniture made to customer order.
“After three or four years the company began ‘serial production’ of cupboards and bedroom furniture and realised that it was consuming a lot of veneered panels,” said purchasing manager Dimitrios Lazos “so we bought our first small veneer press and established a veneered panel production line. We then established the Courvoxil company for production of veneered profiles, here in Tyrvanos.”
The market in Greece boomed in the 1990s and Alfa Wood realised it could sell veneered panels and profiles to the market, rather than just supplying its own needs, so it established a sales network around the country.
“We also traded in melamine faced boards, raw MDF, lumber and plywood and the company grew a lot in the nineties,” said Mr Lazos. “In the late nineties we also began to export.”
The increasing sales of Alfa Wood led to the establishment in 1997 of a second factory, in the nearby town of Larissa, followed by the change of company name mentioned earlier.
During the summer of 2000, a third factory was purchased, this time in Bulgaria. The long-established former Ticha Company in Varna produces raw particleboard and melamine faced particleboard (MFC) as well as slicing veneers from European species. It has a single opening Dieffenbacher particleboard press of 23m in length, supplied as part of a Bison line, with a capacity of around 120,000m3 a year.
“We thus became, for the first time, involved in raw board production and veneer slicing, rather than just being a trader and consumer,” said Mr Lazos.
However, there was still a ‘primary’ product missing from the Alfa Wood portfolio and in 2004, the company plugged that gap by buying out an old MDF manufacturing plant in Grevena, Greece, called Pindos SA, and completely renewing it.
The old, former state-owned plant had been closed down by the state and Alfa Wood set about replacing everything from the green end to the finished product by installing a new Metso turnkey-contract continuous press line. Thus the new Alfa Wood Pindos, the only MDF producer in Greece, started production in April 2006 with a capacity of 90,000m3 a year, using wood from the Greek forests, together with sawmill residues.
In 2007, in addition to manufacturing MDF, this facility also started to produce laminate flooring (Alfa Flooring) and to produce veneer and melamine faced MDF.
The veneer press was purchased from Italian firm Orma Macchine, while the short-cycle press came from German firm Wemhöner.
To further add value to its MDF production, Alfa Wood also went into direct printing onto the raw board using a Spanish-made Barberàn line.
Last year (2009) the final touches were added to further investment in the MDF factory with the installation of a new defibrator (refiner), which increased the nominal line capacity to 130,000m3 a year.
“Alfa Wood Pindos is a unique factory in the region, not just in Greece,” said Mr Lazos proudly, referring to the range of value-adding possibilities at the Grevena site. “Wood is expensive in Greece so it is essential to add value to the raw MDF or you go out of business.”
With the Pindos factory upgrade only just completed and new Fischer & Rückle veneer slicing and clipping lines installed in Larissa in 2008, Alfa Wood has already moved on with new investment, in Drama in northern Greece.
Here, the company has created Alfa Wood Nevrokopi, which is to produce wood pellets for biofuels, as well as coloured and non-coloured wood chips for horticulture. The plant is due on-stream in March or April of this year and will consume wood from northern Greece and Bulgaria as the factory is close to the border between the two countries.
So at the end, for now at least, of all this investment in panel products, Alfa Wood trades in furniture direct to the public, makes MDF and particleboard and cuts veneer. The Larissa factory stocks over 30 species of veneer, in four different qualities and 10 thicknesses, all purchased by Mr Lazos who has a love of the material.
The company also melamine faces or veneers both panel types, makes kitchen worktops, postforms and softforms, offers veneered profiles on MDF and plywood as well as veneered or finish foil-faced matching door frames and door mouldings, and produces melamine and veneer edging for panels. And it direct-prints onto MDF. And it makes laminate flooring. And it has DIY outlets.
“The big range of products is our strength, with the high quality and the variety of products we offer under the same roof so to speak; our products are not cheap mass-produced goods.
“Although the unfavourable market conditions brought about by the international financial crisis impacted our business and the Greek market, Alfa Wood managed to maintain the same turnover as in 2009.”
Late payment is a problem endemic in the Greek domestic market, confirmed the purchasing manager.
So why did Alfa Wood decide to buy Greek panel maker Shelman in these economically challenging times?
“The merger creates synergies important to both companies,” explained Mr Lazos. “We make MDF and Shelman makes particleboard and both companies have a reputation for good quality. Shelman also buys MDF and it makes impregnated paper which Alfa Wood buys.”
Shelman also owns Greece’s only resin producer (Hadjilucas), which currently supplies Alfa Wood anyway. Alfa Wood also works closely with resin technology specialist Chimar Hellas in developing the right resin formulations for its products.
“It [the merger] combines the strengths of both companies in purchasing and there will be savings created by the size of the combined companies and some consolidation,” continued Mr Lazos.
“The history of Alfa Wood proves we can deliver results and I believe this will continue with Shelman.”

Acivil engineer called Athanasios Sarantis entered the particleboard business on his own account in 1977 by building his first production line in a small village outside  Alexandropoulis on the Aegean coast in the north east corner of Greece, close to the Turkish border. The company was called Akritas SA.
The main contractor for the line was German company Bison, with another German company, Dieffenbacher, supplying the press. Full production on this 11m single-opening press line began in 1980 and the nameplate capacity was 150m3 per day. The product was, and is today, trade marked Akripan.
In a sign of the future direction for the company, Mr Sarantis bought his first short-cycle press line in 1982. This was a line from Siempelkamp, also of Germany of course.
In 1986, Akritas took up another form of value-adding by installing a lay-up and press line for veneering its own particleboard, and bought-in MDF, panels. The sliced veneer was purchased from specialist suppliers and jointed and pressed at the Alexandropoulis factory, which today has 40,000m2 of production facilities under cover, on a substantial site. Jointing is by Rückle machinery and pressing is by Italpresse. Akritas offers 10 species of veneer, including reconstituted. Sanding of veneered boards is by Imeas of Italy.
Sales and marketing operations expanded over the years with regional offices and two distribution centres in Greece: in Athens and in Thessaloniki.
Further value-adding facilities came in 1997 with the purchase of two postforming lines – one conventional IDM line for high pressure laminate (HPL) and a Homag line for direct postforming of melamine foils and low pressure laminate (LPL).
In a major step for Akritas SA, the company became listed on the Athens stock exchange in April 2000, selling 25% of its shares. This was subsequently reduce to 22% in a buy-back of some shares by the Sarantis family.
Growth in value-adding continued apace with the purchase of a Wemhöner short-cycle press line in 2001, giving Akritas a total of two such lines.
Investments made after the company’s entry to the stock market continued and so 2002 saw the purchase of a new particleboard production line to replace the original Bison line (which was then sold to Russia).
This line was supplied by Dieffenbacher as the main contractor and employed a CPS continuous press of 25m long and 2.2m effective width. Capacity of this line was 1,000m3/day and it was in three-shift operation by end-January 2003.
Forming and pressing was by Dieffenbacher with chipping by Maier (recently absorbed by Dieffenbacher but at the time independent), sifting came from Pal, glue blenders from Imal, both of Italy and dryer from Büttner, Germany.
The major part of the resin supply for Akritas comes from the sole Greek supplier Hadjilucas, which is a licensee of resin technology supplier Chimar Hellas of Thessaloniki. Chimar also supplies ongoing support to Akritas, as it has done since the 1980s. Some additional resin supply comes over the border from Turkey.
Today, theoretical raw particleboard capacity at Alexandropoulis is around 270,000m3, based on producing 2.2m width board; however, most production is 1.83m, giving a lower factual capacity.
Continuing its investment programme, Akritas in 2004 bought a second Wemhöner melamine foil short-cycle press line – this time a double press that can take two panels end-to-end per charge.
The start-up of this line brought the company to an impressive figure of adding value to 90% of its particleboard production.
“With the veneering production as well, we laminate almost 100%, although we do still have some customers for raw particle- board,” said Polychronis Dardabounis, strategic development manager with Akritas. He joined the company in 1995.
“The great thing was that we were now able to sell all our production, which was good quality and well-accepted on the market, especially after we installed the new line. We gained a big market share all over Greece as well as exporting to Cyprus, Turkey, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia and Croatia.”
But growth did not end there. In 2008, Akritas bought its second direct postforming line to increase its capacity at Alexandropoulis.
In the same year, the company bought an old factory and warehouse at Chirpan, in Bulgaria, and is now installing a secondhand Siempelkamp short-cycle press line there. From 2010 this company is known as Akritas Bulgaria.
“Initially at least, we will ship our particleboard from here to that facility and add value to it there. We do not produce raw board there at this time,” said Mr Dardabounis.
When the company built its first particleboard line at Alexandropoulis it was because there was a good availability of wood raw material from a large local forest. However, this is now an internationally protected area as a bird sanctuary. Over the years, Akritas has increasingly relied on imported wood from Bulgaria (the border is only 90km away) and now obtains the majority of its supplies from there, through its subsidiary, although 25-30% still comes from the Greek forest service.
“Bulgaria has a very good state-owned forestry department and, like Greece, has very good policies on sustainability and a good forest management system,” said Mr Dardabounis, who himself has a strong background in forestry and so knows what he is talking about.
Particleboard production at Akritas is currently to E1 emissions standard, but the company is a member of the European Panel Federation (EPF) and plans to produce to the EPF-S standard soon, which equates to approximately ‘E0.5’. Density is normally 670kg/m3 and thicknesses produced are 6 to 40mm.
Akritas manufactures semi-finished furniture components, such as kitchen cupboard doors and worktops, under the ‘Polytheta’ trademark. It also makes ‘Artika’, a special range of products and direct postformed melamine doors, and ‘Evropanel’ lightweight honeycomb-cored panels. ‘Akripan’ is the trademark name of its raw particleboard.
“We produce to mechanical and other technical levels which are well above the requirements of any official standards and we are thus able to obtain a better price for our products – the name ‘Akritas’ means a lot in our markets,” said Mr Dardabounis proudly.
The company is also economically important, being located in a remote area of Greece and employing some 300 local people as well as creating at least 500 outsourced jobs.
Market conditions in 2009 were no better for Akritas – or Greece – than for anybody else. The company saw the market drop by 20-25% over 2008 and expects much the same market conditions for 2010. Payment is a particular problem in Greece, with customers habitually taking very long credit without the agreement of the supplier.
A further uncertainty was introduced to the Greek market in December 2009 with the proposed takeover of Akritas’ rival panel maker, Shelman, by Greek wood products company Alfa Wood. This then received approval by the Hellenic Competition Authorities on January 11.
However, Mr Dardabounis is not too concerned by this development and believes that the quality of Akritas’ production, and the loyalty of its customers, ensures it a healthy future, although prices may come under some pressure, at least in the short term.

Chimar Hellas resulted from the merger of four Greek companies formerly integrated into the ACM Wood Chemicals Group. It also integrates the intellectual property and technology rights of these businesses, dating back to 1978.These businesses are: Adhesives Research Institute (ARI) involved in R&D in resins and additives technology for panels and laminating papers; Marlit, a production facility for chemical additives; Delmar, with its technology for waste water treatment; and Chimar, which produces and trades in chemicals and in the procuring of chemical plants.
Following the restructuring of the group in 2003, ACM’s former production plants have become licensees of Chimar Hellas, which continues the R&D work for the wood based panels industry.
Chimar Hellas has offices, laboratories and a pilot plant in Thessaloniki on northern Greece’s Aegean coast, from which it serves resin manufacturers in many parts of the world.

Countries in the European Union have, by and large, an excellent infrastructure of universities that are well-equipped and manned by highly trained staff. Consequently, the European Union generates a huge amount of knowledge each year and most of this is financed at the national level. The European Commission funds another layer of international research that is collaborative in nature.
Inevitably, each country has its own agenda for research because of differing climates, terrains, industries and histories. All COST Actions aim to collect information about, and to co-ordinate, existing nationally-funded research programmes. This is mainly achieved by providing researchers with opportunities to meet, which is effective because if you bring together any group of researchers then they will begin to discuss their work. This leads to the sharing of good practice, the identification of knowledge gaps and the development of collaborative and synergistic projects.