Problems on the market of binders for wood-based panels manufacturing:
- The toxicity of formaldehyde resins (which affects the health of manufacturing personnel and customers);
- Prohibition on the use of materials from wood-based panels in educational and medical institutions due to emission of phenol and formaldehyde;
- Insufficient material strength, which leads to rejection of an end product, spoiling or loss of furniture when moving (relocation, repairs, etc.);
- Instability of the material to humidity (if moisture gets on the furniture made of wood-based panels, it crumbles);
- Emissions of harmful substances by utilization, production and use of products made from wood-based panels.
Production of formaldehyde resins has already an unacceptable environmental effects as the vast majority of formaldehyde resins producers in Russia and other countries still use an obsolete technology of resin synthesis from the formalin stabilized with methanol.
In result these enterprises discharge annually more than three thousand tons of ammonia-tar liquor, containing about forty tons of formaldehyde and over three hundred tons of methyl alcohol, through the treatment facilities.
These problems are known for most consumers, but "ecological materials" are expensive and therefore, demand for ecological an environmentally friendly furniture is not satisfied.
The use of harmful polymers by the manufacture of wood-based panels and wrapper for food industry is an urgent problem not only in Russia. Environmentally friendly, safe and harmless technologies are in the focus of the world-wide mainstream.
