Wood wool explained

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] or to fill stuffed toys. It is also sometimes used by taxidermists to construct the armatures of taxidermy mounts.

History

A different product was once known as "wood wool", as well as "pine needle-wool", or "pine wood-wool".[2] According to E. Littell,[3] 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.[4] Another application of this product was use in sanitary towels, as shown in advertisements from 1885 to 1892 in Britain[5] [6] 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.[7]

Fifteen US patents related to "slivering machines" for producing the small wood shreds "known as excelsior" were listed by 1876.[8] 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;[9] 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",[10] 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.[11]

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."[12]

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.[13]

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".[14] A few late-twentieth-century patents on these uses refer to "excelsior/wood wool".[15]

Terminology

In the United States the term wood wool is reserved for finer grades.[16] [17] 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."[18]

The US Standard Industrial Classification Index SIC is 2429 for the product "Wood wool (excelsior)".[19] 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).[20]

Grades and classifications

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:[21]

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

Properties

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 NaNmm, while their length is usually around 500 mm 500mm (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.[22] This standard was originally issued in 1954 and subsequently re-issued in 1986.[23]

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.[24] [25]

Production

Wood wool is cut from "bolts" (round, halved, quartered, or otherwise split logs[18]) of poplar[26] (for example aspen[27]), pine, spruce or eucalyptus.[28] For evaporative cooler pads, the dominant source is the aspen.[29]

Wood wool can be produced in either horizontal[30] or vertical shredding machines.[31]

A possible further processing option is washing, which removes dust.[32] Wood-wool processing may involve drying to reduce moisture[33] in compliance with local requirements, as in the UK.

Applications

Wood wool has many applications; examples include:

Notes and References

  1. Book: Neilson . William . Knott . Thomas . Carhart . Paul . Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language . 1934 . G & C Merriam Co. . Springfield, Mass. . Second . en . used to stuff furniture.
  2. Book: The Dictionary of Trade Products, Manufacturing, and Technical Terms: With a Definition of the Moneys, Weights, and Measures of All Countries . Peter Lund Simmonds . G. Routledge . 1858 . 288 .
  3. Book: Living Age . E. Littell . 1852 . Boston: Littell & Co .
  4. Book: Chemistry for Engineers and Manufacturers . Bertram Blount . Arthur George Bloxam . C. Griffin and Company, Limited . 1905 . 281 . wood wool 1860-1905. .
  5. Web site: victorian sanitary towels. www.sensationpress.com.
  6. Web site: Ads for Hartmann's menstrual pad (1890s) at the Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health. www.mum.org.
  7. Book: Therapeutic Gazette Series III Volume XIII . H. A. Hare and Edward Martin . Detroit: William M. Warren . 1897 . 242 .
  8. Book: Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary: A Description of Tools, Instruments, Machines, Processes, and Engineering; History of Inventions; General Technological Vocabulary; and Digest of Mechanical Appliances in Science and the Arts . Edward Henry Knight . Hurd and Houghton . 3 . 1876 . 2214 .
  9. Web site: Wm. Baker . Machine for manufacturing wood so as to be used as a substitute for curled hair in stuffing beds . 1842 . U.S. patent 2654.
  10. Web site: John A. Bassett . Improved capillary material for filling gas and air carburettors . 1868 . U.S. patent 60670.
  11. Book: Transactions of the State Agricultural Society of Michigan: With Reports of County Agricultural Societies, for the Year 1849-59, vol. 7 (1855) . Michigan State Agricultural Society . 1856 . 139 .
  12. Web site: John Zellweger . Air filter and cooler . 1906 . U.S. patent 838602.
  13. https://web.archive.org/web/20121023063110/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-59320533.html New strands to the wood wool story
  14. Web site: Sediment control device and system . Peter S. Sanguinetti . 2006 . U.S. patent 7021869 .
  15. https://patents.google.com/patent/US5786281 Erosion control blanket and method of
  16. Book: Forest Products, Their Manufacture and Use . Nelson Courtlandt Brown . J. Wiley . 1919 . 425 . wood-wool excelsior europe called. . 1-145-47804-2 .
  17. Book: Soilless Gardening . W. F Gericke . 2007 . 978-1-4067-7064-3 . 38 .
  18. Book: Excelsior manufacture  - Original report dated May 1948  - Reviewed and reaffirmed 1961 . Forest Products Laboratory . U.S. Dept of Agriculture, Forest Service . 1948 .
  19. Web site: Standard Industrial Classifications (SIC) Index - W. www.theodora.com.
  20. http://www.wcoomd.org/files/1.%20Public%20files/PDFandDocuments/Harmonized%20System/0944E.pdf Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (HS), page 2
  21. Web site: Federal Specification: Excelsior, Wood, Fabricated Pads and Bulk Form . September 28, 1973.
  22. http://standards.quality.co.uk/bsi/bs37.htm BS 2548 Specification for wood wool for general packaging purposes
  23. https://archive.today/20130118151700/http://www.bsi-global.com/en/Shop/Publication-Detail/?pid=000000000000154977 BS 2548
  24. Web site: Wood Based Panels International, Friday, March 1 1996.
  25. http://ec.europa.eu/research/industrial_technologies/impacts/article_3027_en.html European Commission Research - Industrial Technologies, 15/09/2005
  26. Web site: Black Poplar, A Guide to the Native Trees of The Village of Euxton, Lancashire, England. Euxton dot com (TM). www.euxton.com.
  27. Book: Wood-using Industries of New Hampshire . Roger E. Simmons . I. C. Evans co . 1912 . 53 .
  28. The suitability of Eucalyptus grandis and two provenances of Pinus kesiya for wood wool-cement slab manufacture by A J Hawkes; A P Robinson; Publisher: London : Tropical Products Institute, 1978.,
  29. Book: Evaporative Air-conditioning: Applications for Environmentally Friendly Cooling . Gert Jan Bom. 25 . World Bank Publications . 1999 . 978-0-8213-4334-0 . etal.
  30. Web site: ISO 9567:1989. ISO.
  31. Web site: ISO 9615:1989. ISO.
  32. Web site: "Our wood wool is washed and cleaned to remove as much dust as possible" . 2009-01-24 . 2016-11-24 . https://web.archive.org/web/20161124050955/http://www.wineschoppen.co.uk/acatalog/gift-box-filler.html . dead .
  33. Web site: Kiln dried wood wool . 2009-01-24 . 2010-02-04 . https://web.archive.org/web/20100204080153/http://www.winebox.co.uk/Wood-Wool-Kiln-Dried-5kg-Tolerance-250g . dead .
  34. Web site: Engle . Dave . Traditional Diamonds on Buggy Seats Engels Coach Shop . YouTube . Engle's Coach Shop . 13 September 2021 . en.
  35. Web site: The Tradition of the excelsior stuffing . HERMANN-Spielwaren GmbH . 24 July 2006 .
  36. Popular Science . Solar air conditioners  - the hotter it gets, the better they work . E. F. Lindsley . Times Mirror Magazines . July 1984 . 64–66 . 0161-7370 .
  37. Web site: Wood Wool Tasmania. www.woodwool.com.au.
  38. Book: The Marble Kite . David Daniel . Macmillan . 35 . 2005 . 978-0-312-32351-6 .
  39. http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplrn/fplrn284.pdf Market Analysis of Erosion control Mats
  40. Wood wool Cement Boards, Production and use, page 284 in "The Ecology of Building Materials", Bjørn Berge, Filip Henley, Howard Liddell, Architectural Press, 2001,, https://books.google.com/books?id=1zPUSFXiW_kC&dq=Wood+wool+properties&pg=PA282
  41. Book: Forest Products and Wood Science . Jim L. Bowyer . Rubin Shmulsky . John G. Haygreen . Blackwell Publishing . 2007 . 978-0-8138-2036-1 . 412 .
  42. Book: Bow and Arrow: The Comprehensive Guide to Equipment, Technique, and Competition . Larry Wise . Stackpole Books . 1992 . 978-0-8117-2411-1 . 912 .
  43. Book: Gericke. William F.. The Complete Guide to Soilless Gardening. 1940. Putnam. London. 9781163140499. 38& 84. 1st.

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