Text & Photos by Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas
IF an apple a day keeps the doctor away, then a tobacco at bay sends the termites astray.
This is a simplistic explanation of what a Filipino engineer discovered about the potential of tobacco to be the next construction material star.
Juanito P. Jimenez Jr. of the Department of Science and Technology Forest Products Research and Development Institute (DOST-FPRDI) studied the use of tobacco stalk particles as additive in glues used in plywood production.
In his study, he found out that tobacco’s insect repellency and scavenger properties work well in plywood as they solve two of its major problems: termites and formaldehyde emissions.
Termite repellency
Jimenez said tobacco’s property to repel termites—due to its nicotine content—has been known for decades already.
But it was only through his adviser’s—Dr. Menandro N. Acda—work that the tobacco trait was put to real use.
Jimenez recalled that National Tobacco Administration (NTA) brought tobacco stalks to DOST-FPRDI and sought help from engineers on how to turn the waste into something useful.
The stalks were by-products of tobacco processing and were already considered waste.
Acda, Jimenez said, thought of using the stalks in making particle board.
The particle board exhibited a resistance to termites after tobacco particles were mixed in its composition.
In the tests conducted by Acda, particle boards with tobacco weren’t eaten by termites, which eventually died of hunger.
“But the problem with that was we don’t have a particle board industry anymore. So when I applied for my PhD dissertation, [Acda] suggested that I use tobacco stalk as additives in the glue used in plywood,” Jimenez told the BusinessMirror in an interview.
Filler
Jimenez initially formulated a glue containing tobacco stalk particles or crushed tobacco stems that look like dust as a filler. He would cut up tobacco stems into chips, dry them, chip again, and then ground them into fine coffee-powder-like particles. The particles, which he calls dust, are then mixed with other components to create a glue treatment.
To test if the treatment is effective against termites, he placed four panels with varying levels of tobacco-dust glue in a drum with a termite nest in the middle.
“If given the choice, the termites would eat first the panels without treatment. After weeks the nest would lose activity and eventually die due to starvation,” he explained.
“The other panels with tobacco glue were unscathed,” he added.
Jimenez explained that most of the raw tree materials that plywood manufacturers use today are vulnerable to insect attacks, especially to termites.
Scavenger
Aside from its termite repellency, tobacco also contains a scavenger property due to its nicotine content.
Due to this, plywood with tobacco-based glue has less formaldehyde emission, hence, lesser risk for household users to inhale carcinogenic materials.
“We’re not aware of formaldehyde emission of furniture. Furniture over time emit formaldehyde which, based on World Health Organization (WHO)’s findings, is carcinogenic when inhaled through time,” Jimenez explained.
“Formaldehyde iyong masangsang na amoy lalo na hardware at bagong gawang plywood,” he added.
Jimenez disclosed that plywood using their tobacco-based glue would also pass industry standards based on formaldehyde emission.
He added that plywood would pass the minimum formaldehyde emission grading of F1 star. F4 star is the top formaldehyde emission grade which means least emitted amount of the strong chemical.
Four-in-one
The original goal of Jimenez’s study was to just replace the filler and extender materials used by manufacturers of plywood with tobacco-based mixture.
At present, Jimenez said manufacturers use wheat flour and rice hull flour or ipa as extender and fillers.
“You think plywood’s surface level is smooth but on a microscopic level it’s not. That’s why they use fillers,” he explained.
“And in our study we were able to prove that our glue mixture could replace both the extender and filler components. It’s replacing two with one,” he added.
Due to this, Jimenez said manufacturers could save P22 per kilo if they use tobacco dust-based glue mixture since it would replace two raw materials, based on their initial computations.
Jimenez added that manufacturers pay P18 per kilogram for wheat and P9 per kilogram for rice hull, while tobacco dust is just P5 per kilogram.
Furthermore, companies would no longer be competing for wheat and rice hull supplies from other businesses since tobacco dust is not utilized much by industries, he said.
“So what happened now is that our product became a four-in-one. Ground tobacco stem as an extender, filler, termiticide and scavenger,” he quipped.
Jimenez’s research titled “Tobacco Particles as 4-in-1 Additive for Plywood Adhesive” won first place both in the paper and poster competitions under the research category of the 31st Regional Symposium on Research, Development and Extension Services of the Southern Tagalog Agriculture, Aquatic and Resources Research, Development and Extension Consortium in November 2018.
For real
The real economic benefits of Jimenez’s product will only be determined, however, during their pilot production of industry-sized plywood this fourth quarter.
Jimenez said they partnered with a plywood cooperator that will produce full-sized panels in large quantities to determine the efficacy of their glue in the real environment.
The pilot production will start sometime in October to November this year, Jimenez said.
Jimenez said they will tap an economist to determine the economic benefits, such as savings for plywood manufacturers, in using the tobacco glue.
He explained that some considerations for costing would be expenses for hauling and transportation of tobacco stems and equipment used in producing the glue.
Future
Despite the still-uncertain horizon for the innovation, Jimenez said there are already interested firms to adopt their tobacco-based glue.
The interest, Jimenez said, arises from the fact that plywood manufacturers and even glue makers are looking for alternatives to chemicals they use.
In fact, Jimenez disclosed, one of the country’s leading glue manufacturers is willing to adopt the tobacco-based glue should they be able to prove its possible savings in production.
Jimenez is optimistic that their pilot production run this fourth quarter would yield positive results and prove that their product is economically feasible.
Jimenez said it would be pragmatic if their technology would be adopted in Mindanao since it is where plywood manufacturers are concentrated and there is a huge tobacco plantation in the region
Promising
NTA said it is optimistic about the potential of Jimenez’s study since it could wipe out the 25,000-MT tobacco stem wastage annually.
The attached agency of the Department of Agriculture (DA) said Jimenez’s glue mixture is one of the promising value-added products of tobacco today.
And since tobacco stems constitute waste in the farm, NTA said the country has sufficient supply in case the tobacco-based glue is commercially adopted by manufacturers.
NTA said one of the ways to commercialize Jimenez’s work is by packaging it and seeking government funding.
Jimenez estimates that tobacco stem waste nationwide would be reduced by 2 million kilograms annually if all 20 active plywood companies use a tobacco-mixed glue.
The NTA estimates that tobacco waste is around 25,000 metric tons or 25 million kilograms every year.
Besides waste reduction, farmers would have additional income since tobacco stems are treated as waste in the fields.
Looking back, he recalled that he just wanted a laboratory-based experiment for his dissertation but DOST officials encouraged him to go big and do it in a real large-scale production.
“I’m positive that we will get good results,” he said.