Industrial Crops and Products 22 (2005) 141–149 Properties of cotton carpel-based particleboards Mehmet Hakkı Alma a,∗ ,H¨ ulya Kalaycıo ˘ glu b , Ibrahim Bektas ¸ a , Ahmet Tutus a a Department of Industrial Engineering of Forestry, Faculty of Forestry, University of Kahramanmaras Sutcu Imam, Kahramanmaras 46060, Turkey b Department of Industrial Engineering of Forestry, Faculty of Forestry, University of Black Sea Technical University, Trabzon, Turkey Received 4 December 2003; accepted 19 August 2004 Abstract In this study, the cotton carpel-based particleboards were produced from the chips of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) by using urea–formaldehyde (UF) and melamine urea–formaldehyde (MUF) adhesives. The chemical composition of cotton carpels and various mechanical and physical properties of cotton carpel-based particleboards were investigated. In producing particleboards, having minimum physical and mechanical properties as required in the conventional standards for general purpose particleboards, the optimum pressure time and density were found to be 5 min and about 0.7 g/cm 3 , respectively. The MUF-bonded particleboards with a density of about 0.7 g/cm 3 resulted in better physical and mechanical properties than UF-bonded ones. In general, with the exception of perpendicular screw-holding strength, all the studied properties (i.e., bending strength, IB, lateral screw-holding strength and Janka hardness) of the cotton carpel-based particleboards nearly met the minimum requirements for general grade particleboards. Furthermore, the additional studies are required to improve the properties, especially physical, of cotton carpel- based particleboards. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Cotton carpel; Particleboard; Physical properties; Mechanical properties; Chemical composition 1. Introduction The demand for wood and other biomass-based par- ticleboard materials has considerably increased mainly due to rate of population growth. The world’s popula- tion is increasing at the rate of approximately 90 million ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 344 223 76 66/352; fax: +90 344 221 72 44. E-mail address: alma@ksu.edu.tr (M.H. Alma). people per year (Cooper and Balatinecz, 1999). More- over, the world population currently consumes over 3.5 billion tons of green wood annually, which corresponds to about 0.7 tons per person. If the consumption rate of wood fiber and the rate of population growth stay con- stant, demands for wood fiber will increase by over 60 million tons each year. Therefore, a huge imbalance be- tween supply and demand will be inevitable. This is the predicted supply/demand scenario we will have faced in the coming years (to 2005 and beyond). Therefore, 0926-6690/$ – see front matter © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.indcrop.2004.08.001