The Use of Oil Palm Trunks for Wood Products

The Use of Oil Palm Trunks for Wood Products

Fruehwald Arno, Fruehwald-Koenig Katja

Abstract. Worldwide, oil palms cover an area of nearly 25 million ha with over 75 % located in Asia. After 25 years of age, the palms are felled and replaced due to declining oil production. The average annual total volume of trunks from plantation clearings amounts to more than 100 million m³. Like all other biomass, the trunks remain on the plantation site for nutrient recycling. But this leads to increased insect and fungi populations causing problems for the new palm generation. Many regions where oil palms grow currently suffer from a decline in timber harvested from their tropical forests. An extensive project, involving partners from both R+D and industry, is studying the possibility of improving the use of oil palm trunks to manufacture marketable timber products. The consortium consists of some 20 partners mainly from Germany, Malaysia, and Thailand. Areas of development are: harvesting and storage of trunks, sawmilling, drying, processing into various products like solid wood-based panels (block-board), flash doors, furniture elements as well as CLT and gluelam for the building sector. All sectors have shown remarkable success.

Keywords
oil palm trunks, palm wood, processing, palm products

Published online 4/20/2019, 12 pages
Copyright © 2019 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA

Citation: Fruehwald Arno, Fruehwald-Koenig Katja, The Use of Oil Palm Trunks for Wood Products, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 11, pp 69-80, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644900178-3

The article was published as article 3 of the book By-Products of Palm Trees and Their Applications

Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.

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