Sustainable use of MDF waste in construction

Medium-Density Fiberboard (MDF) has become a ubiquitous material in furniture and construction. However, its increasing use generates significant waste. This paper proposes an approach to addressing these challenges by exploring its potential use in construction to minimize incineration and landfilling. The first part of the paper consists in reviewing the current state of knowledge regarding MDF, the waste recovery techniques, and associated challenges. It shows that many methods were studied but were not developed on an industrial scale.

In the second part, we explain the materials and methods used to investigate the potential of incorporating MDF waste into concrete. For that, MDF waste was ground and used as substitution of coarse mineral aggregates with a mass proportion from 0 % to 9 %. As a very preliminary study, the parameters studied were limited to the density and absorption coefficient of the MDF aggregates and the compressive strength of concrete. The results showed that because of the high absorption coefficient of the organic aggregates, the slump of fresh concrete was between 3 and 14 cm and the compressive strength of hardened concrete samples at 12 days were below 5 MPa for samples containing GMDF. However, it is reasonable to predict that the compressive strength of specimens containing MDF waste can align with the requirements for non-structural lightweight concrete (below 17 MPa at 28 days) providing some improvements on the mixing formulation including adjustment of the water content by the treatment of GMDF prior to casting of concrete or fixing the water-to-cement ratio.