October 29, 2009

 EDMONTON, AB, Oct. 29, 2009/ Troy Media/ — A Chinese school which collapsed in a 2008 earthquake is being rebuild using a technology created in Alberta and now being manufactured in China.

The Alberta Research Council’s patented technology uses wheat straw to create Oriented Split Straw Board (OSSB) panels, which will be used in construction where plywood would have been formerly used.

Panel Board Holding (PBH) Ltd. holds the worldwide license to the technology, which promises to tackle the housing, carbon and safety challenges China is facing.

PBH has opened the world’s first plant to manufacture OSSB in Yangling, a city with a large agricultural and bio-tech industry base in the Shaanxi province, about 1,000km southwest of Beijing.

Krijn Leendertse, President of Panel Board Holdings. at his manufacturing plant in Yangling, China

Specialists in OSSB technology from ARC assisted in the plant design and were on hand when the first wheat-straw building panels came off the production line on October 18. When fully operational, the PBH plant will produce up to 5,000 panels of 4 X 8 OSSB boards each day. When plant construction began in March, PBH’s parent company, Mayfair Gmbh, a private equity firm in Germany, committed to re-building a nearby rural Chinese school, which had been devastated by a 2008 earthquake, using OSSB and steel construction methods.

PBH is also constructing low-cost housing on contract in rural China, using the OSSB created from local straw supplies.

“This is a great example of how a technology developed in Alberta can make a big impact in the world, both environmentally and socially,” Wayne Wasylciw, ARC’s project lead in Edmonton, said. “The circumstances in China lend themselves perfectly to this technology, turning a regional waste stream into building supplies while reducing their carbon footprint and providing much-needed housing.”

ARC has been perfecting the OSSB technology since the mid-1990’s. Its researchers created a machine to split the straw so that it would lie flat for better bonding, and then created methods to create OSSB using the same resins that are used in wood-based OSB (oriented strand board). PBH has been working with ARC for years, and now sees a great opportunity for OSSB to meet a growing demand for building materials in China.

“It is our mission to be the market leader in manufactory agri-waste/fiber-based panel boards that will contribute to the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, preserve the world’s forests and develop sustainable growth to developing and emerging economies,” Krijn Leendertse, PBH’s president, said.

China has a lack of wood for construction but an excess of straw that is burned by farmers, releasing smog and carbon into the atmosphere. Housing demand has forced the excavation of food-producing land for clay brick-making which are susceptible to earthquakes when used in buildings. PBH expects the use of waste straw to create OSSB building panels will spark a new value stream for Chinese farmers, reduce carbon emissions from burning straw and from brick and cement production, and lead to the construction of earthquake-resistant low-cost housing.

Channels: CBC.ca and Yahoo.com, November 9, the Mill Woods Mosaic, Novermber 10, 2009