Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Mold Fungal Resistance of Loose-Fill Thermal Insulation Materials Based on Processed Wheat Straw, Corn Stalk and Reed

Ramunas Tupciauskas
* ORCID logo ,
Zigmunds Orlovskis
,
Karlis Trevors Blums
,
Janis Liepins
ORCID logo ,
Andris Berzins
,
Gunars Pavlovics
,
Martins Andzs
Version 1 : Received: 18 January 2024 / Approved: 19 January 2024 / Online: 19 January 2024 (09:58:05 CET)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Tupciauskas, R.; Orlovskis, Z.; Blums, K.T.; Liepins, J.; Berzins, A.; Pavlovics, G.; Andzs, M. Mold Fungal Resistance of Loose-Fill Thermal Insulation Materials Based on Processed Wheat Straw, Corn Stalk and Reed. Polymers 2024, 16, 562. Tupciauskas, R.; Orlovskis, Z.; Blums, K.T.; Liepins, J.; Berzins, A.; Pavlovics, G.; Andzs, M. Mold Fungal Resistance of Loose-Fill Thermal Insulation Materials Based on Processed Wheat Straw, Corn Stalk and Reed. Polymers 2024, 16, 562.

Abstract

The present study evaluates mold fungal resistance of newly developed loose-fill thermal insulation materials from wheat straw, corn stalk and water reed. Three different processing methods of raw materials was performed by mechanical crushing (Raw, ≤ 20 mm), thermal-mechanical pulping (TMP) using 4% NaOH and steam explosion pulping (SEP). An admixture of boric acid (8%) and tetraborate (7%) was applied to all processed substrates due to their anti-fungal properties. Additionally, the fourth sample group was prepared from SEPs of all raw species without boric acid and tetraborate (SEP*) as control. Samples from all treatments were separately inoculated by 5 different fungal species and incubated in darkness for 28 days at 28 ℃ and RH >90%. The highest resistance to the colonization of mold fungi was achieved by TMP and SEP processing coupled with addition of boric acid and tetraborate, where molds infest only around 35% to 40% of the inoculated sample area. The lowest mold fungi resistance was detected for Raw and SEP* samples, each ~75% that was affected by rich amount of accessible nutrients, suggesting that boric acid and tetraborate additives alone did not prevent mold fungal growth as effective as in combination with TMP and SEP treatments. Together, the achieved fungal colonization scores after combined fungicide and pulping treatments are acceptable for the application of various renewable materials in future thermal insulation product development.

Keywords

wheat straw; reed; corn stalk; steam-exploded pulp; thermo-mechanical pulp; lignocellulosic biomass; thermal insulation materials; mold fungi

Subject

Chemistry and Materials Science, Materials Science and Technology

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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