Investigation of some physical and thermal insulation properties of honeycomb-designed panels produced from Calabrian pine bark and cones

Waste of the forestry and forest products industry, such as pine bark and pine cones, is an important problem for logging, lumbering and paper industries. The objective of this study is to determine some physical properties and the thermal insulation capacity of composites produced from Calabrian pine (Pinus brutia Ten.) bark and cones. For this purpose, 15 types of bio-composite boards, which were in honeycomb form and had 3 layers, were manufactured. Pine barks and cones with fine, middle and coarse particles were used with expanded perlite in ratios of 10%, 20% and 30% of the total volume. Urea-formaldehyde resin was used as a binder that contained boric acid and paraffin. The boards were produced using a honeycomb-designed aluminum mold. The average values of moisture content, density, short-term water absorption by partial immersion, long-term water absorption by immersion, water vapor resistance factor, and thermal conductivity were 10.60%, 269.70 kg/m3, 14.28%, 104.19%, 5.75 and 0.128 W/mK, respectively. All the samples showed excellent fire resistance and behaved as a nonflammable material during the reaction-to-fire testing. According to the findings, it can be said that bark and cone can be used in thermal insulation boards designed in honeycomb form. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.