Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Zhang, Jilei

Committee Member

Zhang, Xuefeng

Committee Member

Shmulsky, Rubin

Committee Member

Kim, Yun Sang

Date of Degree

8-8-2023

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Sustainable Bioproducts

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.)

College

College of Forest Resources

Department

Department of Sustainable Bioproducts

Abstract

This research took place in 3 stages. In the first stage, lignin graphene (LG) was synthesized using a catalytic thermal conversion process. In stage 2, the time and temperature correlations for polyvinyl acetate (PVAc) and phenol resorcinol formaldehyde (PRF) adhesives were found and PRF showed stronger correlation when doped with carbon nanomaterials. Stage 3 evaluated the effect of the nanomaterials on radio frequency (RF) heating time and adhesive strength. It was found that all versions of the PRF adhesive resulted in higher shear strength values when cured in room temperature for 24 hours or in an oven at 170 °F for 30 minutes. The combination of PRF + 0.5 % LG and 120 s RF heating resulted in significantly higher block shear strengths when compared to the other RF heating durations.

Pine lumber was selected as it is the single most important commercial/structural species in North America, by volume. A substantial portion of pine is directed to glue-laminated timber and cross-laminated timber. Both industries use or can use RF curing and as such both may benefit from improvements developed herein.

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