Strong Fully Reprocessable Engineered Wood Composites
ABSTRACT Developing fully reprocessable engineered wood composites (EWCs) with high mechanical strength under mild fabrication conditions remains a significant challenge. Here, a hyperbranched adhesive with complementary imine‐bond and hydrogen‐bond networks was designed and combined with wood particles to fabricate a wood composite (WP/HTP) by hot pressing at 120°C. The hyperbranched structure and multiple hydrogen bonds of the adhesive minimize steric hindrance while facilitating molecular‐chain mobility, thereby synergistically accelerating imine‐bond exchange. The WP/HTP exhibits outstanding reprocessability, retaining 100% of its mechanical properties after three cycles of reprocessing. Meanwhile, the reprocessed WP/HTP exhibits a modulus of rupture (MOR) of 89 MPa and a modulus of elasticity (MOE) of 5.2 GPa, far surpassing those of current commercial EWCs, which typically exhibit recovery rates of 3%–18%, MOR of 1–5 MPa, and MOE of 0.1–0.8 GPa. This study provides a practical strategy for fabricating strong, reprocessable EWCs for advanced manufacturing and represents a fundamental approach to addressing the wood‐waste problem.
Authors
- Zhezhe Zhou
- Cheng Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2722-7497)
- Pingan Song (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1082-652X)
- Jingchao Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8994-3202)
- Qiang Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7571-4903)
- Mark Lynch (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4594-6217)
- Zheng Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-5380-1029)
- Paulomi Burey
- Jianzhang Li
- Xilin Zhang
Institutions
- The University of Queensland (AU)
- University of Southern Queensland (AU)
- Beijing Forestry University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Advanced Materials
- Published
- 2026-10-07
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.75232
- Primary Topic
- Wood Treatment and Properties
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00