Soybean waste in particleboard production

Brazil is the second largest soybean producer in the world, with a yield of around 96.2 million tons per crop. This high yield leads to a great amount of waste resulting from soybean cultivation, which can reach approximately 41 million tons of waste per year. This material has lignocellulosic properties, which may enable its use as a raw material for particleboard production. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the use of soybean pods in particleboard production. For particleboard manufacture, wood of the hybrid Eucalyptus urophylla and Eucalyptus grandis was used, added with soybean pods, at proportions of 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. For particleboard evaluation, a completely randomized design was used, with five treatments and three replicates, using linear regression and the Scott-Knott test at 5% significance for comparison among the different treatments. The properties apparent density, compaction ratio, water absorption after 2 and 24 hours, thickness swelling after 2 and 24 hours in water immersion, internal bonding, modulus of rupture and modulus of elasticity in bending properties were evaluated. The ratio soybean pod waste and eucalyptus particles in the panels led to an increase in water absorption values and thickness swelling, in addition to a decrease in mechanical properties. The production of panels with approximately 23% soybean pods is feasible.