OBJECTIVES BY SECTOR AND RESULTS ACHIEVED: Industrial: to produce manufactured articles from reconstructed wood treated by Saint Peter's innovative bleaching/mark-removing agents (products and processes), with limited modifications to industrial plant and no loss of productivity, with considerable savings on wood (up to 25%) depreciated by deep marks (due to insects and fungi), and to be able to use and give a homogeneous appearance to lower than top quality European woods.
Economic:
recent market research confirms the constant growth in the demand for bleached and markless wood; the wood industry is thus looking for bleaching/mark-removing agents which are non-toxic and harmless, and which respect the work environment and the atmosphere and release no substances which are harmful for the end-user. Our research aims to provide manufactured articles which have no marks, and a lighter, bleached colour, and which achieve social, technical and environmental targets, while keeping down the costs of the products and processes used at the level of the toxic and dangerous alternatives currently available on the market, thereby gaining considerable quotas of the market.
Social:
to create new market niches in order to maintain or raise sales and thus safeguard or even increase jobs. The proposed bleaching technology must solve considerable health problems caused by the technologies used today.
Technical:
to obtain full certification attesting to the fact that the emissions in the work environment and in the atmosphere are below the levels required by law in the various European countries. No worsening of the technical characteristics of the manufactured articles is to result.
It has been noted that as far as emissions are concerned, all the European countries take the United States "Threshold Limit Values and biological exposure indices" (TLV), which are published annually by the ACGIH (American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists), Cincinnati, OH, as their standard. All the emission tests in the work environment and the atmosphere relating to residues of the applications of the bleaching chemicals used in the project have been performed on the basis of these standards, some references indices of which are attached under section 10, and the results have all been well within the limits.
Environmental:
to develop fully harmless bleaching/mark-removing processes and products which are environment-friendly in contrast to the processes used today which are dangerous (danger of fire, explosion, environmental pollution, and of health problems for operators and end-users).