Formaldehyde emission of wood-based composite panels with different surface lamination materials using desiccator method

Wood-based composite panels such as plywood, particleboard (PB), or medium density fiberboard (MDF) are mostly used in the lamination on their surface for the manufacturing of furniture, or interior building products, the concern on the formaldehyde emission (FE) from the surface laminated wood panels is increasingly attracting attentions from the public. Thus, this study was conducted to understand influence of surface laminating materials to the FE from PB and MDF with or without edge sealing, using 24-hour desiccator method. Both PB samples that had been laminated on their surface with low-pressure laminate (LPL) or polypropylene (PP) film and MDF that had been treated with poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) or coating were tested for the FE with or without edge sealing. As expected, the FE of PB with the sealed edges decreased to 37.4% and 80.7% with the LPL and PP lamination, respectively. The surface laminated MDF with the sealed edges also showed a decrease in the emission up to 57.8% and 54.3%, with the PVC lamination and coating, respectively. However, the coated MDF samples showed 5.3% increase in the emission when their edges were not sealed, indicating a FE form the solvent used for coating. These results showed that the type of surface lamination materials on wood-based composite panels has a great impact on their resultant FE, indicating that the influence of surface laminating materials should be taken into consideration for the formaldehyde mission measurement.