The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service has awarded the LSU AgCenter a grant to become the country’s 11th Center for Wood Utilization Research.  The wood research centers conduct research and product development spanning a broad spectrum of activities, said Dr. Allen Rutherford, director and Bryant Bateman Professor of Renewable Natural Resources in the LSU AgCenter’s School of Renewable Natural Resources. 

The 2008 CSREES grant provides funds for two LSU AgCenter projects: 

-- Developing technologically feasible and economically acceptable solutions for using wood fibers and used plastics to manufacture durable building materials. 

-- Developing a recycling system to reuse and recycle decommissioned treated wood and the chemicals used to preserve it. 

The current-year funding is $67,700, Rutherford said. But because the LSU AgCenter was included in the middle of a budget year, “We anticipate that future funding levels will be considerably higher,” he said. Rutherford said the wood fiber-plastics grant will focus on long-term durability and performance of the products, and the recycling system will emphasize an economically viable and environmentally friendly closed-loop recycling system. 

“Wood fiber-plastic composites are emerging as a viable alternative to glass fiber-reinforced composites in various applications,” Rutherford said. “They offer some inherent technical advantages over conventional composites like low cost, light weight, competitive mechanical properties, reduced energy consumption and a ‘green’ concept.” 

Rutherford said researchers at the LSU AgCenter’s Calhoun Research Station are working on methods for recycling preservative-treated utility poles to keep them out of landfills. “A substantial amount of decommissioned wood could be reused to produce value-added, structural engineering components,” he said. 

In addition to Rutherford, who will coordinate the entire project, other center members include Dr. Richard Vlosky, Dr. Todd Shupe, Dr. Qinglin Wu and Dr. Cornelis de Hoop, all in the AgCenter’s Louisiana Forest Products Development Center.