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Advanced Products with Hemp
Incorporating processed cellulose with minerals or binding agents to make value added products:
- Partition wall panels Movable walls to change interior configurations, with surface coatings
- Roof Panels Prefabricated roof segments featuring long fibers for strength.
- Building Blocks Compressed blocks made with portable equipment
- Architectural Moldings Extruded and molded into shape, as baseboards, trim, doors and jambs.
- Molded panels Beautiful features incorporated into interior or exterior surfaces.
- Insulating panels Retrofit for complete exterior renovation and insulation.
- Armored panels Fibers can prevent penetration, absorb shock and momentum.
- Wood substitutes Plywood, dimensional lumber and log substitutes.
- Plates, dishes, art objects HempStoneô as in 8. above.
- Hemp plastic Steam exploded cellulose as a filler, with alcohol fuel as a by-product.
- How about making a granary, in nested cylinders for distribution with nested hats for roof.
- Which products do you manufacture which could be made with this type of material.
The Raw Stalk
The raw stalk has been engineered by nature to stand up. The strength properties of the whole stalks of plants should be used in the product which aims to be processed minimally. Whole stalks combined with processed medium and finer fibers and lignin, resins, pectin, waxes, and oils help to tie the value added product together because of the tangling effect of the fibers and the binding effect, which strengthens the panel or matting in much the same way as paper sheets consist of matted pure cellulose fibers. Of course paper has the lignin removed, so that a material with the lignin left in would be rigid and hard similar to wood or board or stone.
We must process as much of the whole plant into a new form which takes the strength of the whole plant. When plants are fresh, many chemicals are actively available for processing. In processing of alfalfa cubes, for instance, it can be seen that the fresh alfalfa when dried and cubed makes a harder cube than the dry alfalfa which has been steamed and cubed because the lignin is active and fresh. There is a product called HempStoneô made with the raw fresh cannabis hemp plant molded into the shape of a bowl or plate or art object, which makes use of this property. Other processes worthy of interest could include chemical processing to shape cellulose products by virtue of softening the lignin, steam explosion release of the cellulose, and strictly mechanical processing of hemp fiber.
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