Characterization of novolac type liquefied wood/phenol/formaldehyde (LWPF) resin. submitted to Bioresources

Abstract Novolac type liquefied wood/phenol/formalde-hyde (LWPF) resins were synthesized from liquefied wood and formaldehyde. The average molecular weight of the LWPF resin made from the liquefied wood reacted in an at-mospheric three neck flask increased with increasing P/W ratio. However, it decreased with increasing phenol/wood ratio when using a sealed Parr reactor. On average, the LWPF resin made from the liquefied wood reacted in the Parr reactor had lower molecular weight than those from the atmospheric three neck flask. The infrared spectra of the LWPF resins were similar to that of the conven-tional novolac resin but showed a major difference at the 1800–1600 cm−1 region. These results indicate that lique-fied wood could partially substitute phenol in the novolac resin synthesis. The composites with the liquefied wood resin from the sealed Parr reactor yielded higher thickness swelling than those with the liquefied wood resin from the three neck flask likely due to the hydrophilic wood compo-nents incorporated in it and the lower cross-link density than the liquefied wood resin from the three neck flask during the resin cure process