Pyrolysis of wood waste containing urea-formaldehyde and melamine-formaldehyde resins

Nowadays, wood industry produces huge amounts of wood waste containing various additives. Wood waste containing urea-formaldehyde (UF) and melamine-formaldehyde (MF) resins such as particleboard or laminated flooring constitutes a consequent resource of energy. However, this type of waste needs a refinement to eliminate nitrogen responsible of the production of pollutants. The pyrolysis of particleboard and flooring at low temperature (523-573 K) has been studied on an experimental reactor which allows controlling mainly parameters of the pyrolysis such as temperature, reaction atmosphere or residence time of gases in reactor. Some optimum couples time/temperature of treatment are determined by FTIR analysis of the gas products. Quantities of CO, CO2, NH3 produced during the treatment are evaluated in order to estimate the performance of the process. Elementary analyses of residues allow validating the previous results. Thermal analyses of residues in a calorimetric bomb enable to evaluate the energy efficiency of the process. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.