Coco panel board without synthetic binder feasible

Panel boards can be produced from coconut coir husk without using ant synthetic binder.

This was found in a multi-agency study funded by the United Nations-Fund for Commodities.

The study is a joint undertaking of the Department of Science and Technology-Forest Products and Research and Development Institute (DOST-FPRDI), the Netherlands’ Agro-Technology and Food Innovations Organizations (ATO), Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA), and Fiber Industry Development Authority (FIDA).

The project won the Outstanding Creative Research (Likha) Award (Housing, Organizers and Construction category) and the Philips Most Promising Invention Award at the 2004 National Inventors‘ Week held last Nov. 11-16 at the Philippine Trade and Training Center in Pasay City.

Dr. Dwight Eusebio of Los Baños-based FPRDI reported:

"Our experiments in the Netherlands and here in the Philippines have established the conditions for making high performance, environmentally safe building and packaging materials from coconut coir without the need to use expensive and hazardous synthetic binders like urea formaldehyde. This is because coconut coir contains a lot of lignin which converts into a natural binder once hot-pressed."– RAF