As early as the1950s, cottonseed flour (i. e. meal) was tested for use as wood adhesives. Recently, renewed interest exists in the use of plant proteins as wood adhesives, as these materials are renewable and biodegradable. In this research, we separated cottonseed flour into several fractions with different solubility and tested their adhesive properties when bonded to wood composites. Our results indicated there was no significant difference in the adhesive properties between the flour residues separated by two-step sequential extractions with water/NaCl (1M) system and buffer (35 mM Na phosphate, pH 7.5)/NaCl (1 M) system. Compared to the unfractionated cottonseed flour, however, the adhesive behavior of the water- and buffer-extracted residues was improved in respect to tensile strength and number of wood strips broken. Further extraction of the flour residues with 1 M NaCl lowered the adhesive performance of cottonseed flour. Findings in this research may provide an economic way to prepare cottonseed flour-based wood adhesives.

Fractionation of cottonseed flour for improving its adhesive properties

245th National Meeting (2013)

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