Thesis: Degradability of wood composite packaging

For his thesis at Tampere University in Finland, Petri Sihvonen tested how wood based composite packaging material degrades in an industrial composting facility. After 17 days of composting, 16 samples out of 24 were disintegrated to pieces and dry mass could not be measured.
During the 12 weeks test period, 21 out of the 24 samples were disintegrated to pieces the size of 1-2 mm, six control plastic samples remained unchanged. Sieving test results support the assumption that 90 % disintegration of the samples, to the smaller than 2 mm size of the particles, may be reachable in 12 weeks in an industrial composting environment. Volatile solid content of the sample mass was over 50%.
Click here for the thesis (1.31 MB).

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