InnoBuche
Innovative modified beech wood products - Improved material properties in light of increasing beech wood production and high consumer demands to ensure sustainability
The project "Innovative modified beech wood products" as part of the BMBF funding programme "Sustainable Forestry" is to provide solutions for the production of innovative products from beech wood using the innovative future technology of "Wood Networking". These new products will enhance and sustain sales of beech wood through improvement of properties. The wood cross-linking process has already shown excellent improvements for pine, but is still in the preliminary trials stage for beech wood. The proposed adaptation of this process to beech wood is intended to demonstrate sufficient practicality in implementation. Prototypes of products made from modified beech wood are to be produced and tested. The further optimisation of this novel wood cross-linking process developed at the Institute for Wood Biology and Wood Technology at the University of Göttingen (IfHH) serves the aim of ensuring the sustainable sale of the main assortments of locally produced beech wood. New areas of application for beech wood are to be opened up in order to substitute competing materials (e.g. plastic, concrete, metal, etc.), with modified beech wood from environmentally friendly production processes. A marketing strategy for products made from sustainably produced modified beech wood is to be developed in order to identify consumers' expectations of high-quality materials and to open up new markets for beech wood that were previously inaccessible due to its inadequate properties.
The partners involved in the project will jointly develop refinement and marketing concepts for the raw material "modified beech wood" along the forest-wood value chain. These concepts range from sustainable forestry production, to refinement of wood by modification, to further processing and end consumers. In addition to the technically oriented stages, accounting and marketing aspects will also be included in this concept.