Wood wool, known primarily as excelsior in North America, is a product made of wood slivers cut from logs. It is mainly used in packaging, for cooling pads in home evaporative cooling systems known as swamp coolers, for erosion control mats, and as a raw material for the production of other products such as bonded wood wool boards. In the past it was used as stuffing, or padding, in upholstery, [1] [2] or to fill stuffed toys. It is also sometimes used by taxidermists to construct the armatures of taxidermy mounts.
A different product was once known as "wood wool", as well as "pine needle-wool", or "pine wood-wool". [3] According to E. Littell, [4] it was produced in Breslau, Silesia (today Wrocław, Poland) by von Pannewich, who mentioned that in 1842 five hundred counterpanes made of it were purchased for a hospital in Vienna. The process was chemical and made use of the leaves (needles) of Scots Pine.
In England, yet another product known as wood wool was produced by the chemical breakdown of wood strips by means of sulphurous acid, for use in such applications as absorbent material in surgical dressings. [5] Another application of this product was use in sanitary towels, as shown in advertisements from 1885 to 1892 in Britain [6] [7] for "wood wool diapers" or "sanitary wood wool sheets". European "wood wool" was known in America in the late nineteenth century as being distinctly different from excelsior. [8]
Fifteen US patents related to "slivering machines" for producing the small wood shreds "known as excelsior" were listed by 1876. [9] The earliest, a machine for "Manufacturing wood to be used as a substitute for curled hair in stuffing beds" was patented in the US in 1842; [10] however, the product had no specific name when the process was first patented.
The 1868 patent, "Improved capillary material for filling gas and air carburettors", [11] was for a new use for "fibres torn from the wood by suitable machinery" to be "sold and used as filling for mattresses, its commercial name being 'excelsior'." This is the earliest description of the material by this name cited by the Oxford English Dictionary, though the term "excelsior mattress" had appeared in print as early as 1856. [12]
In 1906, the now-common use of wood wool in the cooling pads of evaporative coolers appeared in a patent that stated, "I have found that excelsior makes a very cheap and good material for this purpose." [13]
In the beginning of the 20th century wood wool was used as a raw material for producing wood wool panels in Europe, especially in Austria. By 1930, wood wool cement boards were being widely produced. [14]
In the 21st century, wood wool appears in numerous patents for erosion control and sediment control methods and devices; for example, the 2006 "Sediment control device and system". [15] A few late-twentieth-century patents on these uses refer to "excelsior/wood wool". [16]
In the United States the term wood wool is reserved for finer grades. [17] [18] The US Forest Service stated in 1948 and 1961 that, "In this country the product has no other general name, but in most other countries all grades of excelsior are known as wood wool. In the United States the name wood wool is reserved for only a small proportion of the output consisting of certain special grades of extra thin and narrow stock." [19]
The US Standard Industrial Classification Index SIC is 2429 for the product "Wood wool (excelsior)". [20] The same term is used by the United States for the external trade number under which wood wool is monitored: HTS Number: 4405.00.00 Description: Wood wool (excelsior); wood flour.
The number 4405.00 is applied to wood wool by the World Customs Organization in the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (HS). [21]
The 1973 US Federal Government procurement specification PPP-E-911, cancelled in 1991, categorized "wood excelsior" products according to the following table of terms and dimensions: [22]
Table I. Strand size for type I class A and B | |||
---|---|---|---|
Grade | Nomenclature | Thickness of strand, Inch | Width of strand, Inch |
1 | Superfine wood wool | 0.006 | 0.020 |
2 | Wood wool | 0.012 | 0.020 |
3 | Extra fine | 0.015 | 0.031 |
4 | Fine | 0.018 | 0.031 |
5 | Medium | 0.021 | 0.041 |
6 | Coarse or ribbon | 0.015 | 0.167 |
Wood wool fibers can be compressed and when the pressure is removed they resume their initial volume. This is a useful property for minimizing their volume when shipping. Due to its high volume and large surface area, wood wool can be used for applications where water or moisture retention is necessary. The width of wood wool fibers varies from 1.5 to 20 mm (0.059 to 0.79 in), while their length is usually around 500 mm 500 mm (20 in) (depending on the production process).
In the UK there are specifications for dimensions, pH, moisture content and freedom from dust and small pieces, set by British Standard BS 2548 for wood wool for general packaging purposes. [23] This standard was originally issued in 1954 and subsequently re-issued in 1986. [24]
When these fibers are bonded with cement or magnesite, bonded wood wool boards are produced. Slabs of bonded wood wool are considered environmentally friendly construction and insulation materials because they do not contain organic binders. [25] [26]
Wood wool is cut from "bolts" (round, halved, quartered, or otherwise split logs [19] ) of poplar [27] (for example aspen [28] ), pine, spruce or eucalyptus. [29] For evaporative cooler pads, the dominant source is the aspen. [30]
Wood wool can be produced in either horizontal [31] or vertical shredding machines. [32]
A possible further processing option is washing, which removes dust. [33] Wood-wool processing may involve drying to reduce moisture [34] in compliance with local requirements, as in the UK. [24]
Wood wool has many applications; examples include:
Adhesive, also known as glue, cement, mucilage, or paste, is any non-metallic substance applied to one or both surfaces of two separate items that binds them together and resists their separation.
This timeline of clothing and textiles technology covers events relating to fiber and flexible woven material worn on the body. This includes the making, modification, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, and manufacturing systems (technology).
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Mineral wool is any fibrous material formed by spinning or drawing molten mineral or rock materials such as slag and ceramics.
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Building material is material used for construction. Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay, rocks, sand, wood, and even twigs and leaves, have been used to construct buildings and other structures, like bridges. Apart from naturally occurring materials, many man-made products are in use, some more and some less synthetic. The manufacturing of building materials is an established industry in many countries and the use of these materials is typically segmented into specific specialty trades, such as carpentry, insulation, plumbing, and roofing work. They provide the make-up of habitats and structures including homes.
An evaporative cooler is a device that cools air through the evaporation of water. Evaporative cooling differs from other air conditioning systems, which use vapor-compression or absorption refrigeration cycles. Evaporative cooling exploits the fact that water will absorb a relatively large amount of heat in order to evaporate. The temperature of dry air can be dropped significantly through the phase transition of liquid water to water vapor (evaporation). This can cool air using much less energy than refrigeration. In extremely dry climates, evaporative cooling of air has the added benefit of conditioning the air with more moisture for the comfort of building occupants.
Upholstery is the work of providing furniture, especially seats, with padding, springs, webbing, and fabric or leather covers. The word also refers to the materials used to upholster something.
A humidifier is a household appliance or device designed to increase the moisture level in the air within a room or an enclosed space. It achieves this by emitting water droplets or steam into the surrounding air, thereby raising the humidity.
Hardboard, also called high-density fiberboard (HDF), is a type of fiberboard, which is a pressed wood or engineered wood product. It is used in furniture and in the construction industry.
Steel wool, also known as iron wool, wire wool, or wire sponge, is a bundle of very fine and flexible sharp-edged steel filaments. It was described as a new product in 1896. It is used as an abrasive in finishing and repair work for polishing wood or metal objects, cleaning household cookware, cleaning windows, and sanding surfaces.
Fiber cement siding is a building material used to cover the exterior of a building in both commercial and domestic applications. Fiber cement is a composite material made of cement reinforced with cellulose fibers. Originally, asbestos was used as the reinforcing material but, due to safety concerns, that was replaced by cellulose in the 1980s. Fiber cement board may come pre-painted or pre-stained or can be done so after its installation.
Evaporative-pattern casting is a type of casting process that uses a pattern made from a material that will evaporate when the molten metal is poured into the molding cavity. The most common evaporative-pattern material used is polystyrene foam.
Nonwoven fabric or non-woven fabric is a fabric-like material made from staple fibre (short) and long fibres, bonded together by chemical, mechanical, heat or solvent treatment. The term is used in the textile manufacturing industry to denote fabrics, such as felt, which are neither woven nor knitted. Some non-woven materials lack sufficient strength unless densified or reinforced by a backing. In recent years, non-wovens have become an alternative to polyurethane foam.
Cement kilns are used for the pyroprocessing stage of manufacture of portland and other types of hydraulic cement, in which calcium carbonate reacts with silica-bearing minerals to form a mixture of calcium silicates. Over a billion tonnes of cement are made per year, and cement kilns are the heart of this production process: their capacity usually defines the capacity of the cement plant. As the main energy-consuming and greenhouse-gas–emitting stage of cement manufacture, improvement of kiln efficiency has been the central concern of cement manufacturing technology. Emissions from cement kilns are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for around 2.5% of non-natural carbon emissions worldwide.
A cement board is a combination of cement and reinforcing fibers formed into sheets, of varying thickness that are typically used as a tile backing board. Cement board can be nailed or screwed to wood or steel studs to create a substrate for vertical tile and attached horizontally to plywood for tile floors, kitchen counters and backsplashes. It can be used on the exterior of buildings as a base for exterior plaster (stucco) systems and sometimes as the finish system itself.
Cement-bonded wood fiber is a composite material manufactured throughout the world. It is made from wood, chipped into a specially graded aggregate that is then mineralized and combined with Portland cement. Combination of wood and cement paste has been shown to result in a degradation (hydrolysis) of wood components, namely hemicellulose and lignin.
Mineral bonded wood wool boards are building boards made of wood wool fibres, water and the binding agents cement, caustic magnesia and gypsum. Mineral bound wood wool boards are used in a wide range of applications, e.g., thermal insulation, acoustic insulation, indoor decoration, etc.
used to stuff furniture
wood wool 1860-1905.
wood-wool excelsior europe called.
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