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Content archived on 2024-06-16

Development of Innovative Particleboard Panels for a better mechanical performance and a lower environmental impact

Objective

European furniture industry is largely made by SMEs. In modern furniture industry use of particle-board (chipboard panels) is continuously growing. They are basically composite materials, usually wood chips and a binder (adhesive or resin). During the last decade, especially in countries where forestry resources are scarce, there has been a decay of mechanical performance of chipboard panels; main reason for that is the increased use of recycled materials obtained from old pieces of furniture, made themselves of chipboards, for the preparation of new chipboard panels, instead of natural wood chips. This downgrading of performance is causing serious problems to furniture manufacturers, typically SMEs, across Europe and motivate this Collective Research project proposal, which aims at reinforcing the technological basis of chipboard manufacturing, and at developing innovative chipboards, which meet mechanical performance requirements and have a reduced environmental impact.

SMEs involved in this project are coming from the following sectors mostly at the end of the furniture industry value chain:
a) SMEs manufacturers of furniture;
b) SMEs manufacturers of semi-finished panels for the furniture sector.
Recycling in particleboard industry has an increased relevance, also because of environmental impact.


The demand from furniture manufacturers is clearly oriented towards innovative particleboards, employing new materials. This project will bring:
a) Improved mechanical performance of particleboards in terms of:
b) Reduced density;
c) Increased stiffness
d) Improved workability
e) Lower environmental impact.

Innovation will concern the following aspects of particleboard composition and manufacturing:
a) Innovative binder materials
b) Recycling waste materials as filler for particleboard production (agriculture, industry, home etc.);
c) Improved adhesion between filler and matrix;
d) Innovative instrumentation for panel production process and quality checking.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

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Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP6-2003-SME-2
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

Collective - SMEs-Collective research projects

Coordinator

COSMOB - CONSORZIO DEL MOBILE SPA
EU contribution
No data
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

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Participants (25)

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