engleski

Possibility of biopolymer synthesis from wooden railroad sleepers withdrawn from use

Wooden railroad sleepers have high durability due to their impregnation with various types of chemicals including creosote oil. At the end of their life span wooden sleepers are very difficult to recycle and are generally classified as hazardous materials. The partial recovery of such materials is possible in energetic sense, but certainly an interesting option is to create new products with added value that are based on creosote treated wood. Therefore in this paper the possibility of biopolymer synthesis from milled wood of railroad sleepers withdrawn from use has been investigated. The efficiency of creosote removal from wood has been examined by means of FT-IR analysis, results of which showed that after extraction milled wood is almost completely free of creosote. The analysis of acetylation process revealed that it is possible to produce biopolymers from cellulose isolated from creosote treated wood that is almost identical to that prepared from untreated wood. The results also suggest the possibility of creosote infused wood extract use as impregnation agent for wood preservation.

Biopolymer ; cellulose acetate ; railroad sleepers ; creosote oil

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