Síntesis de madera plástica (WPC) a partir de lignina extraída de carbón mineral de bajo rango y plástico posconsumo

Abstract

During the year 2022 the deforestation rate in Colombia decreased by 10% according to the Forest and Carbon Monitoring System of the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies IDEAM, with a total of 156,693 hectares deforested, making it a forest country (Cardona, 2023). But the real challenge for humanity is to achieve the complete elimination of deforestation. However, not only deforestation represents an environmental problem; plastics are an equal or even bigger problem, since the excessive use of these polymers and their difficult degradation have generated that these wastes have become an environmental problem, in fact, if the trend continues by the year 2050 there will be about 12 million tons of plastic that take at least 100 years to degrade (Lopez Aguirre, Pomaquero, & Lopez, 2020). In order to contribute to the reduction of deforestation, the CARBONES seedbed of the Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas has been working for more than a decade on the development of a wood product, extracting lignin from low rank mineral coal, modifying it by means of UV radiation and using other components such as rice husk to provide the cellulose support and post-consumer HDPE that when reacting with the U-F resin synthesized from urea and formaldehyde, allows obtaining a product with ideal mechanical characteristics for its use in the industrial field. The experimental section was divided into three stages: for the first stage, the characterization of the charcoal is carried out, including the next and last analysis, followed by the extraction of lignin and its respective characterization; in the second stage, the structural modification of the lignin is carried out by means of UV radiation and the third stage is based on the synthesis of the U-F resin and the final stage is the elaboration of the wood product. As results it was obtained that the coal sample extracted from the municipality of Tunja, Boyacá corresponds to SUBITUMINOUS coal due to its percentage of humidity, ashes, among others, taking into account the different ASTM-D standards. In the extraction of lignin, a reaction yield of 64% was achieved and its respective characterization was carried out in comparison with the blank, which corresponds to a sample of commercial Kraft lignin, showing similar peaks in the different spectra (IR, UV, TGA). Regarding its structural modification, it presents favorable results since the C=O tension is evidenced in the spectra. Regarding the resin synthesis, it should be noted that the absence of melamine affects the reaction process a little, so it is advisable to use this reagent mainly. Regarding the wood piece.