Anaerobic biodegradation of urea formaldehyde adhesive resins from particleboard

Abstract

Particleboard is known to cause broader environmental issues when large amounts are sent to the landfills. The toxic adhesive resin urea formaldehyde, used to bind the wood fibers, causes contamination of groundwater in the landfill. In this experiment, laboratory size anaerobic digestion systems were designed to degrade the resin’s toxicity. The anaerobic digestion reactors were made with diluted cow manure. To test biodegradation of urea formaldehyde under anaerobic conditions, filter paper with urea formaldehyde (UF), saw dust with UF, different states of particle board, and medium-density fiberboard (MDF) were mixed with digestion reactors at 37˚C to examine the effects of the digestion over 80 days. The addition of urea formaldehyde increased biogas production. The large chunks of particleboard produced less amount of gas than the saw dust of fiberboard while the saw dust and garburated pieces had no significant differences in the amount of gas produced by anaerobic reaction. However, MDF produced more gas than garburated fiberboard. These results suggest that the biodegradation of particleboard requires finer particles for anaerobic microorganism to have better access. According to the test on formaldehyde biodegradation, gas production and fungal growth were delayed depending on the increase of formaldehyde concentration. Lastly, GC was operated to test whether the formaldehyde could be degraded under anaerobic conditions. A significant amount of CO[subscript 2] and CH[subscript 4] was observed from each trial, and percentages of mole of CO[subscript 2] and CH[subscript 4] were increased and decreased.