TW202535568A - Methods for recycling processing waste - Google Patents

Abstract

This invention is designed to utilize processing scraps, chips, or other undesirable wood pieces or materials, and to join them together into a machined board, block, or composite bevel to form sized wood, strips, or other machinable components. Wood and/or other desired materials of any size or shape can be aligned within a mold, and then epoxy resin and/or other desired filler materials are injected to fill the mold. After the epoxy resin and/or other desired filler materials cure, a large board is formed, which can then be precisely ground to the required size and thickness. Simultaneously with the pouring of epoxy resin and/or other desired filler materials, this process can rearrange and press the orientation of the wood grain, thereby forming a denser material, increasing strength and reducing the tendency to shift over time.

Description

Methods for recycling and processing waste materials

This invention relates to the technical field of recycling and processing waste materials.

This invention is designed to utilize mill end, scraps, or other undesirable wood pieces or materials, joining them together to form a machined board, block, or cant for use in creating sized timber, strips, or other workable components. Wood pieces of any size or shape and/or other desired materials can be arranged within a mold, and then epoxy resin and/or other desired filler materials are injected to fill the mold. Once the epoxy resin and/or other desired filler materials have cured, a large board is formed, which can then be precisely machined to the required dimensions and thickness. Simultaneously with the pouring of epoxy resin and/or other desired filler materials, the process can rearrange and compress the wood grain orientation, thereby forming a denser material to increase strength and reduce the tendency to shift over time.

Different types of wood can be combined, and epoxy resin can be used to create the desired design. It can also be used to create usable components from other waste materials, such as wood chips, metal shavings, plastic shavings, sawdust, sticks, twigs, logs, branches, or any other desired waste. Different materials can create different desired effects throughout the thickness of the component. Different dyes or materials can be used to draw images to achieve the desired appearance.

The more material placed in the mold, the less epoxy resin or filler material is needed to form a uniform component. Materials requiring epoxy resin or other filler coverage can be bonded together with a chosen adhesive, provided it is compatible with the epoxy resin and/or urethane or the chosen filler. This significantly reduces the amount of filler material required. The filler material can be any adhesive, resin, epoxy resin, urethane, or any desired filler material. Processing scraps can be laid end-to-end and/or side-by-side to form the general shape of a slab or block. Cuts can be made in the ends and/or sides of the processing scraps, scraps, logs, or other wood to be placed in the mold. Cuts can be made on either side to be joined with another piece of wood or other material. The cut allows for a larger surface area for the epoxy resin or other filler materials to bond. Once the filler epoxy resin and/or other filler materials are injected and cured, the newly formed slabs or blocks can be sawn into squares and cut to the desired lengths. This can then be processed into gauge lumber, veneers (such as strips), larger sheets, or any other desired available shape. This material can be used as a door veneer, panel surface, flat building material, reinforcing components, glued to the surface of honeycomb cores, sandwich cores, Sing Core (US Patent #7,147,741), or for any other desired purpose. This composite can be sliced to increase shear strength or simply for decorative purposes.

This method is suitable for any undesirable waste. It can be used for undried wood 'green timber', logs, branches, twigs, tree trimmings, veneer, or any other undesirable waste. This waste contains many defects and is generally unusable for woodworking. These defects can be filled and can be made into boards or blocks, and then further processed into usable components. This is a new method for harvesting small logs that do not require prior drying. At least one side of the log can be flattened to create a smoother base for the filler material. Before drying, they can be wrapped with filler material, and if cracks appear after drying, they can be filled with the same or different filler material. The resulting boards can be cut into thin components or gauge timber, depending on the desired result. Each side of the small logs can be flattened to create smaller gaps after they are glued together, thus reducing the amount of filler material required.

Existing techniques involve finger-jointing and edge-jointing of wood, but these methods are time-consuming and labor-intensive. In this new method, there is no need to shape the wood or other waste materials and even level them, as the injected urethane and/or epoxy resins can bond them together. The material can even be vertically assembled in a mold and then horizontally sliced, so that each slice exposes the end grain. Exposing the end grain will allow the green wood to dry faster.

A method for achieving rapid and strong bonding between uneven materials (preferably processing scraps or irregularly shaped trims) to form large blocks or sheets is as follows: Air is removed from the mold using a vacuum, forcing the required adhesive and/or epoxy resin into each opening between each piece of irregular material. Wood scraps can be arranged horizontally side-by-side and vertically layered to form layers that can form blocks. The adhesive and/or epoxy resin can be poured into one side of the mold or soft plastic model containing the irregular material. When the mold, plastic cover, or vacuum stage is sealed and suction begins, the adhesive and/or epoxy resin are forced through the cavities between each piece of uneven material, resulting in a strong bond between each piece in the mold. Once the adhesive and/or epoxy resin has fully cured, the resulting product will be a large block or board, which can be sliced and planed into usable composite wood of the desired size. These defective pieces of wood, if recycled waste, will form blocks that can then be mechanically processed, such as sawing, sanding, planing, or otherwise treated, to form usable wood of the required specifications. This is because processing small parts, panel trimmings, processing scraps, or other defective materials is very labor-intensive. These blocks or boards can be formed from any waste material, and any type of adhesive and/or epoxy resin with the desired color can be used. When the wood and epoxy resin are placed under pressure, the wood grain can be perpendicular to the press's rows to compress the wood grain as much as possible. The denser the wood grain, the stronger the resulting composite board, block, or veneer.

Traditionally, wood can be finger-jointed or edge-to-edge glued, but this requires planed wood to bond firmly.

Alternatively, irregularly shaped materials with uncured epoxy resin and/or selected adhesive can be placed in a pressurized chamber or container to force the epoxy resin and/or adhesive into all cracks and joints between the irregular materials. Furthermore, optional settings have been added to place uncured irregular materials into pressurized and/or vacuum containers in any desired order.

Another pressing method uses steel pipes, which can be filled with wood pieces and epoxy resin or other fillers, and pressed from both ends or one end of the pipe. This allows the wood pieces to be extruded to achieve maximum compression, thereby altering the grain pattern and increasing density, while forcing the epoxy resin or other filler into every space. This can be used in conjunction with a vacuum chamber to further force the filler into every joint and space within the wood. This can also be used to form composite wood of specific shapes, such as 'U' shapes to create U-shaped grooves, or 'H' shapes to create H-shaped grooves. Pressing wood forcefully forces the wood fibers to fill the mold, and with the addition of curable fillers, it can form very dense composite boards, blocks, or diagonal pieces.

Alternatively, moisture-curing adhesives can be used as filler materials. Moisture-curing adhesives can be urethane, epoxy resins, or other moisture-curing adhesives. If a moisture-curing adhesive is used, raw materials can be used to form the composite. The moisture-curing adhesive draws moisture from the raw materials while the adhesive cures, forming a strong bond between the wood components and other materials in the composite.

The purpose of this invention is to utilize processing scraps, chips, or other undesirable wood pieces or materials, joining them together to form a machined board, block, or composite bevel for use in creating sized timber, strips, or other workable components. Wood pieces of any size or shape and/or other desired materials can be arranged within a mold, and then epoxy resin and/or other desired filler materials are injected to fill the mold. Once the epoxy resin and/or other desired filler materials have cured, a large board is formed, which can then be precisely machined to the required size and thickness. Simultaneously with the pouring of epoxy resin and/or other desired filler materials, the process allows the wood grain orientation to be rearranged and compressed, resulting in a denser material that increases strength and reduces the tendency to shift over time.

Different types of wood can be combined, and epoxy resin can be used to create the desired design. It can also be used to create usable components from other waste materials, such as wood chips, metal shavings, plastic shavings, sawdust, branches, twigs, logs, trunks, or any other desired waste. Different materials can create different desired effects throughout the thickness of the component. Different dyes or materials can be used to draw images to achieve the desired appearance.

The more material placed in the mold, the less epoxy resin or urethane is needed to form a uniform component. The material to be covered with epoxy resin or urethane can be bonded together with an adhesive of choice, provided it is compatible with the epoxy resin and/or urethane or the selected filler. This significantly reduces the amount of filler material required. Processing waste can be laid end-to-end and/or side-by-side to form the general shape of a slab or block. Once the filler epoxy resin and/or urethane has been injected and cured, the newly formed slab or block can be sawn into squares and cut to the desired length. It can then be processed into standard timber, veneers (e.g., strips), larger sheets, or any other desired usable shape. This material can be used as a door veneer, panel surface, flat building material, reinforcing component, glued to the surface of honeycomb core material, sandwich core material, octane core material of U.S. Patent #7,147,741, or for any other desired purpose. This composite can be cut into thin sheets to increase shear strength or used simply for decorative purposes.

This method is suitable for any undesirable waste. It can be used for undried wood 'green timber', logs, branches, twigs, tree trimmings, veneer, or any other undesirable waste. This waste contains many defects and is generally unusable for woodworking. These defects can be filled and can be made into boards or blocks, and then further processed into usable components. This is a new method for harvesting small logs that do not require prior drying. At least one side of the log can be flattened to create a smoother base for the filler material. Before drying, they can be wrapped with filler material, and if cracks appear after drying, they can be filled with the same or different filler material. The resulting boards can be cut into thin components or gauge timber, depending on the desired result. Each side of the small logs can be flattened to create smaller gaps after they are glued together, thus reducing the amount of filler material required.

Existing techniques involve finger-jointing and edge-jointing of wood, but these methods are time-consuming and labor-intensive. In this new method, there is no need to shape the wood or other waste materials and even level them, as the injected urethane and/or epoxy resins can bond them together. The material can even be vertically assembled in a mold and then horizontally sliced, so that each slice exposes the end grain. Exposing the end grain will allow the green wood to dry faster.

Boards can be glued together with a chosen adhesive to form larger stacks. Multiple stacks can be placed side-by-side in a mold to be coated with epoxy resin or other fillers, thus forming large blocks for machining into lumber for various uses. Boards can be derived from smaller logs or twigs that are not normally used. They have at least one flat edge and can also have a 'live edge' if desired. If wide boards are used, they can be vertically cut into thirds, with the middle third used as lumber. The middle third can be sliced perpendicular to the grain to form vertical grain boards, or it can be cut along the grain to form a slab.

This method reduces the number of air bubbles trapped between vertically stacked layers. The vertical stacks can be placed side-by-side by pre-gluing the wood pieces together, leaving space between each stack. Once the stacks are glued, these spaces can be filled with the desired filler material; therefore, no space is needed between each vertical layer. At least two stacks of glued boards can be placed together in the mold to be filled with epoxy resin or other filler material, and their orientation can be loose edges together, loose edges to straight edges, straight edges to straight edges, or any combination of these variations.

The purpose of this invention is to utilize materials that are typically wasted, such as processing scraps, uneven wood, sawdust, or any other desired waste. An uneven, irregularly shaped waste (Figure 1-b) can be placed into a mold (Figure 1-a) to prepare for the injection of epoxy resin or urethane (Figure 1). Once the waste (Figure 2-b) is placed in the desired position within the mold (Figure 2-a), epoxy resin (Figure 2-c) can be injected into the mold. The epoxy resin and/or urethane (Figure 3-c) can be used to cover the waste (Figure 3-b) within the mold (Figure 3-a). After curing, the mold can be removed, thereby forming a block or plate (Figure 4), and it can be seen that the waste (Figure 4-a) and epoxy resin (Figure 4-b) are separate but bonded together as a single solid block. Then, the blocks or boards can be cut into thin components (Figure 5-a), which can be used as surface materials or for any other desired purpose. The sliced thin components (Figure 6-a) can be glued side-by-side to form sheet materials or surface materials (Figure 6). This method can be used to produce blocks and/or boards from green logs (Figure 7), which can be used to produce gauge timber or other desired building materials. At least one side of the green log can be flattened (Figure 8), and flattening the side (Figure 8-a) can reduce the amount of filler material required. Alternatively, all four sides of the green log can be flattened (Figure 9). Similarly, flattening the sides (Figures 9-a and 9-b) can reduce the amount of filler material required. The green logs (Figure 10-a) can be glued together and placed in a mold (Figure 10-b). Then, epoxy resin and/or urethane (Figure 10-c) are injected into the log to form blocks or boards. Once the epoxy resin (Figure 11-c) has cured, the mold can be removed, and the log (Figure 11-a) and epoxy resin (Figure 11-c) can then be cut into thin components (Figure 11-b). The log (Figure 12-a) or other wood components to be formed in the composite (Figure 12) can have cuts (Figure 12-b) into the faces to be joined together to increase the bonding surface area. The boards of wood can be glued together in a vertically stacked manner (Figure 13). One side of the board (Figure 13-a) can be flattened, but it can also have uneven edges (Figure 13-b). Wide boards can be cut into multiple sections. Narrow boards (Figure 14-a) can also be glued together in a vertical stack (Figure 14), and may have uneven edges (Figure 14-b). When using wide boards, the center can be sliced and removed (Figure 15), and can be used as specification timber (Figure 15-a) and machined for various applications. The remaining edges (Figure 16) can be placed into a mold to be filled. During filling, the edges of board (Figure 16-a) may have uneven or rough sides (Figure 16-b), which will be filled in the mold. Alternatively, the stacked edges of board (Figure 17-a) can be glued together, thus exposing the rough edges (Figure 17-b) (Figure 17).

Figure 1-a: Mold Figure 1-b: Irregularly Shaped Waste Figure 2-a: Mold Figure 2-b: Waste Figure 2-c: Epoxy Resin Figure 3-a: Mold Figure 3-b: Waste Figure 3-c: Epoxy Resin and/or Polyurethane Figure 4-a: Waste Figure 4-b: Epoxy Resin Figure 5-a: Thin Component Figure 6-a: Thin Component Figure 8-a: Leveled Side Figure 9-a: Leveled Side Figure 9-b: Leveled Side Figure 10-a: Green Log Figure 10-b: Mold Figure 10-c: Epoxy Resin and/or Polyurethane Figure 11-a: Log Figure 11-b: Thin component Figure 11-c: Epoxy resin Figure 12-a: Log Figure 12-b: Cut Figure 13-a: Board Figure 13-b: Edge Figure 14-a: Narrow board Figure 14-b: Edge Figure 15-a: Standard timber Figure 16-a: Board Figure 16-b: Uneven or rough side Figure 17-a: Board Figure 17-b: Rough edge

Figure 1 is a top view of the uneven waste material inside the mold. Figure 2 is a top view of the uneven waste material inside the mold, showing that epoxy resin can be injected below or at the same level as the material inside the mold. Figure 3 is a top view of the uneven waste material inside the mold, showing that epoxy resin can be injected above the material inside the mold. Figure 4 is a side view of the material and epoxy resin block after they have been removed from the mold. Figure 5 is a side view of the material and epoxy resin block after they have been cut into thin components. Figure 6 is a top view of the components cut into thin slices and glued together to form a sheet product. Figure 7 is a front view of the log. Figure 8 is a front view of the log with one side leveled. Figure 9 is a front view of a log with all four sides flattened. Figure 10 is a front view of a log with all four sides flattened, glued together, placed in a mold, and covered with epoxy resin and/or urethane. Figure 11 is a front view of a log in cured epoxy resin and/or urethane that can be sliced into thin pieces. Figure 12 is a front view of a log with all four sides flattened and cuts made on its surfaces. Figure 13 is an isometric view of wide planks glued together to form a vertical stack. Figure 14 is an isometric view of narrow planks glued together to form a vertical stack. Figure 15 is an isometric view of the central portion removed from the stack of wide planks. Figure 16 is an isometric view of both sides of the stacked wide plates after the center plate has been removed. Figure 17 is an isometric view of both sides of the stacked wide plates joined together.

Claims (14)

A method for recycling processing waste such as irregularly shaped wood, composites, plastics, sawdust, and all types of solid materials, said recycling is carried out by permanently bonding and/or filling gaps using adhesives and/or epoxy resins, such that all irregularly shaped materials are glued together end-to-end and side-by-side, or used as fillers to fill the gaps between wood, composites, metals, plastics, or any other type of solid material. The method for recycling waste as described in claim 1 comprises at least one layer in the horizontal direction and at least one layer in the vertical direction to form a large board or beam, wherein, if necessary, the board or beam is joined end-to-end and edge-to-edge to form a panel and/or beam, or it is cut into thin components for use as timber or decorative composite wood products. The method for recycling waste as described in claim 1 increases pressure to compress the grain of the wood and can be ensured by using epoxy resin or other fillers to form a very dense composite material. The method for recycling waste as described in claim 3 can press the wood in a manner where the grain orientation is perpendicular to the phase arrangement of the press, thereby further enhancing compression. The method for recycling waste as described in claim 1 allows for cutting along either side of the wood to be joined with another piece of wood to increase the bonding surface area and ensure a stronger bond. The method of recycling waste as described in claim 1 involves adding those glued, newly reconstructed thin components to the surface of honeycomb core, sandwich core, or the core of U.S. Patent #7,147,741 to form stronger, lightweight panels and/or beams. The method for recycling and processing waste as described in claim 1 enables the newly formed components to be used for door surfaces, sandwich panels, countertops, tabletops, or other desired surfaces. The method for recycling and processing waste as described in claim 1 involves using small logs, twigs, branches, or any other irregularly shaped pieces of wood to form large boards and/or beams from partially treated wood containing numerous defects, to bond them together with a selected adhesive, or using epoxy resin as an adhesive and/or filler to form large composite panels, panels, or beams for use as decorative or eco-friendly composites or composite wood, thereby maximizing the quality of the wood without the need for trimming to smooth edges or ends. The method for recycling waste as described in claim 1 allows for the placement of an uneven material containing epoxy resin and/or adhesive into a vacuum and/or pressurized container to force the epoxy resin and/or adhesive into each empty space, thereby ensuring a strong bond between the irregular components. As described in claim 1, the method for recycling waste involves flattening scraps, processing waste, small logs, twigs, or other undesirable materials on at least one side, then gluing at least two boards together in a vertically stacked manner, using different adhesives instead of the filler material, and once fully cured, slicing the boards perpendicular to their width, then placing multiple slices into a mold to cover and bond them with the filler material. The method for recycling waste as described in claim 10, if using wide boards to form the vertical stack, allows for the cutting of the middle portion to form segments of glued laminated wood that can be used directly and machined for various purposes. The method for recycling waste as described in claim 11 can slice the glued laminated wood perpendicular to the width of the board to form vertically grained wood. The method for recycling waste as described in claim 11 can slice the laminated wood parallel to the width of the board to form flat-sawed wood. The method for recycling waste as described in claim 10 allows for placing at least two stacks together into the mold and filling them with epoxy resin or other filler material, wherein the orientation of the at least two stacks is such that the edges are together, the edges are opposite each other, the straight edges are opposite each other, or any combination of these variations.