Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) trunk and empty fruit bunch particles was chemically modified using acetic anhydride achieving chemical weight gain of about 18%. The reacted and untreated control particles were then fabricated into laboratory sized particleboards of 13 cm diameter and 5mm thickens. From each board, specimens of 18 x 95 x 5 mm dimension with density ranging from 650 to 700 kg/m3 were obtained for further trials viz., unexposed, 2-hour boil, short soak (l day soak-dry/cycle for 12 cycles) and long soak (5 day soak-dry/cycle for 5 cycles) water exposure trials. Initial dimensions for all unexposed dry specimens were recorded prior to the trials.
Results in the boil test indicated that all treated specimen boards impressively improve thickness swelling compared to unacetylated control specimens. Similarly, both the short and long soak water exposure trials also exhibited significantly (p0.05) enhanced performance in the dimensional stability of the chemically modified specimen boards over control samples. Acetylated specimen boards in addition, exhibited consistently and significantly (p0.05) better dimensional stability compared to acetylated trunk specimens in all the 3 water exposure trials. In conclusion, oil palm fibres can be successfully acetylated to achieve approximate weigh gain of 18%. Chemically modified oil palm empty fruit bunch and trunk particleboards significantly enhanced performance in dimensional stability compared to untreated control boards after undergoing severe water exposure trials.
Key words: acetylation, dimensional stability, oil palm trunk, empty fruit brunch, Elaeis guianeensis.
Correspondence: Jalaluddin Harun, Faculty of Forestry, University Pertanian Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia