20 percent harder than oak, grows 100 times faster

[SeanBB]

This is interesting:

https://returntonow.net/2019/04/14/americas-first-hemp-wood-factory-is-being-built/

Edit: Thanks Mod.

 

[Wickets]

thanks for the link.....the story doesnt talk about how all this growing and clever technology will translate into warmer, cheaper burning stoves!! Hopefully a wood stove enthusiast with capital will find a way to bring the scraps to a tractor supply near you

 

[SpaceBus]

thanks for the link.....the story doesnt talk about how all this growing and clever technology will translate into warmer, cheaper burning stoves!! Hopefully a wood stove enthusiast with capital will find a way to bring the scraps to a tractor supply near you

Since soy glue is used in the process I doubt it would be great for the stove.

 

[peakbagger]

I expect its pretty energy intensive process if it close to the technology used to process waste bamboo fibers. The bamboo flooring that is popular is composed of strips of actual wood that are either pieced together with a flat pattern or a vertical pattern after the strips are preprocessed by cooking them to remove starches. There are no definable strips of wood like bamboo in hemp so the process they are using is what is done with the waste from the bamboo operation that are not usable as strips.

The waste product process separates the fibers and then mixes them with glue to form a composite. I expect there is also a significant drying operation to drive out moisture and then set the glue. The resulting product is closer to a laminate floor where grain will need to be embossed or printed on rather than a natural wood grain. Thus the article is comparing a premium natural wood product to a heavily manufactured product that happens to have natural inputs. It would be interesting to see the total embodied energy in the hemp flooring process compared to a standard hardwood floor. Making hardwood flooring is a mechanical process while it appears the hemp product is initially a mechanical process that rapidly shifts to thermal and chemical process.Generally a mechanical process has a lower embodied energy than thermal and chemical process.

I realize the attraction, headlines and hype but it looks to me like an apples to oranges comparison.

Note the old Masonite process made a very similar product but skipped the glue as it used the natural lignins in the wood to acts as glue. With the right additives it could make a product very similar to the hemp product described. The only advantage is wood lignins tend to be dark brown while Hemp lignins may be a lighter color.

Long ago hemp was used to make paper as an alternative to cotton fiber. It was a costly product reserved for books. The reason making paper out of trees was developed was trees were far more available and far cheaper to produce. That's why cotton and hemp fiber is now used for only very specialized applications like currency.

 

[SpaceBus]

I expect its pretty energy intensive process if it close to the technology used to process waste bamboo fibers. The bamboo flooring that is popular is composed of strips of actual wood that are either pieced together with a flat pattern or a vertical pattern after the strips are preprocessed by cooking them to remove starches. There are no definable strips of wood like bamboo in hemp so the process they are using is what is done with the waste from the bamboo operation that are not usable as strips.

The waste product process separates the fibers and then mixes them with glue to form a composite. I expect there is also a significant drying operation to drive out moisture and then set the glue. The resulting product is closer to a laminate floor where grain will need to be embossed or printed on rather than a natural wood grain. Thus the article is comparing a premium natural wood product to a heavily manufactured product that happens to have natural inputs. It would be interesting to see the total embodied energy in the hemp flooring process compared to a standard hardwood floor. Making hardwood flooring is a mechanical process while it appears the hemp product is initially a mechanical process that rapidly shifts to thermal and chemical process.Generally a mechanical process has a lower embodied energy than thermal and chemical process.

I realize the attraction, headlines and hype but it looks to me like an apples to oranges comparison.

Note the old Masonite process made a very similar product but skipped the glue as it used the natural lignins in the wood to acts as glue. With the right additives it could make a product very similar to the hemp product described. The only advantage is wood lignins tend to be dark brown while Hemp lignins may be a lighter color.

Long ago hemp was used to make paper as an alternative to cotton fiber. It was a costly product reserved for books. The reason making paper out of trees was developed was trees were far more available and far cheaper to produce. That's why cotton and hemp fiber is now used for only very specialized applications like currency.

I think the US is the only country that still prints on cotton, but it haven't Google verified that. Most other countries use plastic now.

I hadn't thought about the potential for higher environmental damage when looking at the entire process of manufacturing. It does make the claim of the product being environmentally friendly much less likely.

 

[begreen]

As compared to cotton, hemp has a lot of things going for it. It takes a whole lot less water to grow and requires little or no herbicides/pesticides. (Double the fiber yield per acre with about 1/10th the water) In addition, it's a great carbon sink. As for flooring, it takes 50-100 years to grow an oak. Hemp is an annual crop and some areas can grow 2 crops a year. If looking at the total carbon debt from see (acorn) to product I suspect that hemp comes out way ahead. If they can make a tougher product at a lower cost to market and it has a lower carbon footprint, then it should be a good alternative.

FYI, another little know quality of help is its use in phytoremediation. The plant is known for its ability to pull toxins from soil.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics...ntaminating-its-land-by-cultivating-hemp.html