Utilization of Palm Oil Shells (Elaeis Guineenses Jacq) as Particle Board Raw Material

Particle board is a commodity in high demand in Indonesia. However, because wood is the main raw material involved in particle board production, this high demand poses a great threat to forest ecosystems. Therefore, palm oil shells have been adopted as a substitute for wood by the government, as a countermeasure to help protect forests. Particleboard is made by combining wood particles or similar powders with a polyester resin adhesive. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the effect of palm oil shell particle size on the quality of the particleboard produced. The manufacturing process consisted of raw material preparation, printing and testing. The raw materials were palm oil shells and polyester resin adhesives, while the printing process involved combining the 50 % polyester resin adhesives with mesh shell particles with sizes of 4, 12, and 30. Conventional methods of testing were used to analyze the particle board quality, by assessing how much potential energy each material could receive before breaking. The results showed that the optimum quality of particle board was made using a mesh size of 30, which was able to receive 1, 764 joules of potential energy without breaking.