Thursday, December 09, 2021
Best Project, Manufacturing: CalPlant Rice Straw to MDF Manufacturing Plant
Engineering News-Record: A two-decade engineering push has culminated in what is the world’s first production facility to sustainably manufacture medium-density fiberboard (MDF) from post-harvest rice straw waste that has no added formaldehyde.
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This is really cool, and it's solving one problem with another. MDF is notorious for being toxic to work with because of the formaldehyde, and it's really not good for the environment. At the same time, rice is one of the more wasteful food staples to grow not just because of the land and water usage, but also because the rotting stalks release a large amount of greenhouse gasses when flooded at commercial farm quantities. By reusing the excess stalks to make MDF, especially using locally grown rice to reduce the emissions and costs from the transportation of materials, this is a significant step up in sustainability for this material. Hopefully, this technique will proliferate and we can eliminate regular MDF entirely. Now I guess someone just needs to figure out how to make lauan out of corn; that would be a real boon for sustainability in the entertainment industry.
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