Liquid wood - a review

There is a growing impact of sustainable production from renewable resource s on plastic and material producing industries. Therefore, a number of biod egradable plastics were developed from genuine or nature-like polymers. Mat erials from underivated biopolymers, however, are called "liquid wood". Liq uid wood may be based on pure biopolymers like lignin( e.g. "Arboform") or on mixtures of biopolymers (e. g. "Fasal" and "Fasalex"). Arboform is a the rmoplastic system. It is based on a lignin-matrix. The material is strength ened by cellulose fibres. It may be processed like polyamide and is special ly suited for demanding injection moulding. Wood based materials as Fasal o r Fasalex connect a starch-matrix to cellulose fibres. They may be processe d like PVC, especially as Fasal is suited for injection moulding and Fasale x is suited for extrusion. Appearently liquid wood is harder and stiffer th an conventional plastics. On the other hand it is considerably brittle. Sev eral institutes, however, try to overcome this disadvantage by improving ma trix-elasticity through process-immanent modification and derivatisation.