Two hundred and sixty delegates from over 40 countries gathered in Hannover for the 9th European Wood Based Panel Symposium on October 8-10, organised by the European Panel Federation (EPF) and research organisation Fraunhofer WKI.
EPF president Ladislaus Döry opened proceedings by outlining the current situation of the European wood based panel industries.
"Our industry has managed to survive these times and I am sure it will continue to do so," said Mr Döry. "But the economic indicators are we are going backwards, so there is a little bit of fear about the future." He said signs of market stabilisation were still lacking, except in OSB.
The 28 EU member states had a combined €206bn woodworking industry turnover in 2012, comprising 44% in the furniture sector, 16% in sawmilling and the other 40% being the manufacture of wood products, including the panel industry.
EU28 particleboard production capacity in 2013 was 40.3 million m3, with a forecast of +1% in 2014, while actual production was 28.4 million m3 and the 2014 prediction +1.5%.
But Mr Döry warned the industry was not on track to meet these forecasts yet, with many companies not producing to their capacities.
Meanwhile, particleboard industry costs spiralled upwards in 2013, with recycled wood prices up 7%, virgin wood up by 5% and roundwood up by 4%.
EU28 MDF production capacity was 14.5 million m3 in 2013 (-2% forecast for 2014), while production was 11.2 million m3 (+2.1% predicted for 2014). Wood costs for MDF production were up 5%, resins dipped 2% and recycled wood was up 3%.
OSB production capacity is expected to grow 2% this year, while the sector’s wood costs rose 2% and energy costs rose 1% in 2013.
"This is an untenable situation," said Mr Döry. "We cannot continue in our industry with energy costs always going upwards," EU28 + EFTA hardboard industry installed capacity was 874,000m3 in 2013, with production down 5%, while softboard production capacity was 3.7 million m3 (rigid) and two million m3 (flexible), with production output up 8%.
Important issues for the future, he added, were wood availability at an affordable cost, competition with bioenergy, certification/ sustainability, recognition of carbon storage in wood products, formaldehyde/VOC emissions, standardisation and the need for promotional work.
Mr Döry said current forecasts show that by 2020, wood use in the woodworking sector will be surpassed by wood use in the energy sector (University of Hamburg research).
"In 2016-17 we will start to be in trouble because of this," said the EPF president. But he said the EPF still believes in the future of the industry, referencing important R&D projects, the recent success of the Brussels Wood Action Days and the unveiling of the European Woodworking Industries Manifesto 2014-2019.
Professor Shigehiko Suzuki, of Shizuoka University in Japan, charted the decline of domestic Japanese plywood production from eight million m3 in the 1980s to less than three million m3 today.
"This is the most important change in the history of the wood panels industry in Japan. This was a big decline for us and the volumes have been replaced by imported plywood and other panels."
Recycled wood (80% of Japanese particleboard is made from this), agri-fibre and faster-growing species are receiving increasing emphasis in Japanese panel production.
Approximately 51% of Japanese particleboard goes into construction and 47% into furniture, while the mix is 70:16% for MDF. Wood based panels are finding a market as shear panels in Japanese home construction.
Developments in US regulations governing formaldehyde emissions were a hot talking point from several speakers.
Gary Heroux, vice-president of product acceptance at the Composite Panel Association (CPA), said amendments to the California Air Resources Board’s standards on formaldehyde emissions from composite wood products should be completed in 2016.
Mr Heroux said future prospects for a federal harmonisation of the CARB approach across the US was a good idea and a deterrent to other US states imposing regulations, providing certainty for panel producers and customers and more likelihood of compliance. Implementation rules should be published around the turn of the year.
However, the Green Chemistry Initiative – originally relating to chemicals in every day items such as children’s toys – is becoming broader, with 22 states now putting forward legislation on formaldehyde.
The California Safer Products Regulation (2013), which stems from Green Chemistry, is about imposing new rules regarding chemicals deemed hazardous "even though there is the CARB rule in California", said Mr Heroux.
"This opens the doors for further possible regulations."
In September, the State of California released a three-year draft plan to identify a priority list of products in the regulations. Formaldehyde and wood based products were on that list, something to which the CPA intends to respond.
David Harmon, technical manager of Momentive Specialty Chemicals, said it was not a question of "if" but "when" there would be further emissions regulations on wood based products, including finished products.
Mr Harmon cited 980 panel mill/product combinations listed under CARB globally, with 141 in the US, 170 in Europe, and 618 in Asia-Pacific/the rest of the world. Over 90% of wood panels in North America meet the CARB Phase 2 emission limits.
Mr Harmon said CARB lab results would be the ultimate test by which all standards will be measured.
"It’s slowly being recognised that further regulations in formaldehyde will serve no additional practical health benefit." This was due to the low levels now being achieved by industry.
Adalbert Westermann, Pfleiderer marketing manager, tackled a keynote presentation Megatrends – Tailwind for the wood based panel industries.
He was also glad to report that Pfleiderer’s earnings, before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, had doubled in the first half of 2014 to €36m compared to a year ago, with turnover up by 6% to €315m. And the company’s recent share offering was over-subscribed.
"That indicates that confidence is back in the financial markets. We are quite optimistic about the future," said Mr Westermann.
The company’s annual production includes 3.1 million m3 of particleboard, 700,000m3 of MDF, 110 million m2 of MFC, 30 million m2 of HPL and 340,000 tonnes of glue.
Mr Westermann said urbanisation was a "megatrend", with more people living in cities in the future. The challenge, he said, was to convince architects and planners to recognise and use wood products as a superior material for multi-family, not just single-family, homes.
But he warned that other materials were often more prominent in the minds of architects and planners.
And he issued a warning on the megatrend of "neo-ecology".
"The wood industry has not yet succeeded in being included in this positive aura of sustainability. We have to communicate wood’s benefits all the way to the end-user."
Individualisation was another highlighted ‘mega-trend’.
"Our industry is stuck between mass markets, DIY culture and niche markets. Complexity is driven by more varieties and shorter life cycles (decors/structures).
Programme extensions in niches such as lightweight construction are opposing megasite production and economies of scale."
Raw materials in the South American wood based panel industry was covered by Dr Alex Berg, of the University of Concepción in Chile.
Brazil and Chile account for 80% of South America’s total panel production capacity, with Brazil the largest at 12.57 million m3 and Chile second with 3.57 million m3. Brazil’s particleboard output is 4.6 million m3, its MDF production is 5.3 million m3, while for plywood it is 2.1 million m3.
Brazilian plantation pine stocks are growing at 40.1m3/per hectare/year, while eucalyptus is growing at 40.7m3 per hectare/ year.
The industry, Dr Berg said, was developing integrated forest industry facilities, including bio-refineries, which he conceded had good and bad aspects.
"But, in my opinion, I think we have big opportunities in introducing new products into the industry portfolio."
This includes bark polyphenols (tannins) – currently under-utilised – as wood adhesive for plywood, particleboard and OSB manufacture, as well as for rigid and elastic foams and bioplastics.
The subject of natural wood adhesive was tackled further by Christian Hübsch of UPM Biochemicals and Charles Markessini of Chimar Hellas in their presentation on lignin-based binders.
A lignin plant, utilising the LignoBoost system to extract lignin from kraft black liquor, was started by Domtar in North Carolina during 2013. The lignin is marketed as BioChoice.
In August, UPM became an exclusive BioChoice distributor for Domtar in Europe, while in 2015 Stora Enso will open a 40,000 tonne/per year-capacity lignin plant.
"Lignin is an impressive structure and its performance is almost the same as phenol formaldehyde," added Mr Markessini.
"Nature did a wonderful thing in creating lignin and it is a good idea to replace phenol."
The UPM/Chimar Hellas research work showed that when lignin is chemically treated, a reaction takes place so a resin is produced, making it possible to produce a class 3 (exterior uncovered) five-ply birch plywood using this adhesive.
However, low reactivity and viscosity issues led to further trials, involving substitution of 50% of phenols with a lignin-based binder, resulting in acceptable properties and performance. This is being used on an industrial scale in two plywood mills, while laboratory/pilot tests involve a 75% phenol replacement rate in plywood.
"We believe we can help the resin industry develop resins that are environmentally-friendly but also help make economic savings for the industry," said Mr Hübsch.
"The pulping industry, including UPM, produces a significant amount of lignin every year, which is just not being separated from the black liquor, so in the mid-term, lignin supply is not an issue."
Next, Siemens treated delegates to a fascinating insight into manufacturing operations in the future.
Wolfgang Schroeder, head of TIA marketing at Siemens, said the next stage of industrial manufacturing was a fourth industrial revolution and represented a "paradigm shift" towards smart factories and "Industry 4.0".
This involves the introduction of cyber-physical systems, the use of miniature processors, storage units, sensors and transmitters embedded in machines, plus smart tools and new software for structuring data flows.
"The factories of the future will optimise and control their manufacturing processes largely by themselves," he said.
Use of such technology has been made for the first time with Dieffenbacher machinery at the new Pfleiderer particleboard mill in Neumarkt.
In the next presentation, furniture retailing giant IKEA gave delegates an idea of its panel manufacturing operations and production philosophy.
It has six panel mills in six countries – France, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Slovakia and Sweden, with a special focus on light weight board and HDF (down to 1.2mm thickness).
The 520,000m3 capacity Novgorod facility in Russia is due to add a further processing line in 2015.
IKEA’s Paolo Romano said the company was in the early stages of looking for a second production site for its panels in the US.
Despite having an array of lightweight board solutions, including Bo-Board (alternating density particleboard), Board on Frame (expanded corrugated paper cores for panel thicknesses of over 30mm) and Board on Stiles (corrugated paper cores with fibreboard and particleboard), IKEA is open to further ideas from the industry and challenged delegates to contact the company with its lightweight technology and emissions reduction solutions.
"The customer should be able to have a product which is good-looking, good quality, in very good condition, low price and it should serve the function," said Mr Romano.
"Softboard is an extremely interesting technology for us. "It’s not something we are looking for at the moment as it would not pass our tests [for density requirements], but it’s interesting for the future. We will export using this in the future."
Other presentations included the FibreCube – a new method of measuring fibre size, developed by Thünen Institute, Hamburg University and Fagus-GreCon Greten GmbH, while a fully automatic knife sharpening system for ring flakers by Globus was demonstrated as an improvement (in terms of speed and efficiency) upon existing systems.
Göttingen University showed how a dimensionally stable and durable beech LVL was possible through impregnation with low molecular weight phenol formaldehyde resin, backed up by nine years of field tests, with no recorded delamination or bending, plus high resistance to fungal decay.
Advachem advocated its new binder system for OSB production, avoiding the use of phenolic resins by employing an efficient melamine urea formaldehyde (MUF) resin. Chimar Hellas and NanoPhos SA demonstrated how the addition of nano materials to laminated wood based panels improved hydrophobicity and resistance to staining/finger print marks for applications such as kitchen worktops, at a low-cost and with minimal changes to the laminating line.
Fred Kamke, of Oregon State University’s research centre for wood based composites, captured attention by declaring: "The panel products industry can only continue to exist and be profitable if it actively seeks out creativity and innovation."
He cited the global shift towards open innovation:
"People are starting to realise they cannot do it all by themselves anymore".
