A new environmentally friendly material - honeycomb composite material

With the continuous growth of China's economy and population, the phenomenon of shortage of China's energy, timber and other resources are more prominent, therefore increasing pressure on the environment. According to statistics, China's demand for wood materials are mainly in construction, furniture, packaging, papermaking and other fields. According to the statistics: In recent years, China's import of timber keeps upward trend, only behind shortage of oil, steel, lack of timber is obvious. Facing with such grim energy, resources and environmental pressures, to minimize resource consumption and environmental destruction is currently the most important task. The advent of honeycomb composite materials just to alleviate these problems. It is a new material, light weight, high strength and high stiffness. It has buffer, thermal and acoustic insulation and other functions. It is widely used in construction, furniture manufacturing, packaging and transport. It has high economic value and recyclable.
I) Honeycomb composite material
Bees build a hexagonal honeycomb can be said that is a great miracle of nature. Its structure is more powerful than any round or square structure. It can bear the force from all sides. Honeycomb, such a special structure inspired mankind. Even the thinnest material, just make it into honeycomb shape can withstand enormous force, its not easily deformed and can be recycled. This not only reduces the consumption of raw materials, but also beautify the environment. Honeycomb composite material is made of two thin layers, interlaying hexagonal honeycomb paper core, together with glue. 
II)  Application of honeycomb composite material
Because of its strength, characteristic compressive, bending and super lightweight structure, applicable fields are more widely. Honeycomb composite material is mainly used for environmentally friendly packaging, light building materials,furniture,vehicle and vessel manufacturing industry. Since its birth, it serve humanity with unique structure, and occupy an important position.
1. Application in the manufacture of furniture
Honeycomb composite board can be widely used in variety of furniture panels instead of wood. Traditional furniture is made of wood, so no doubt they will consume huge timber resources, causing resources dwindling day by day. But using honeycomb structure board, based with honeycomb core paper, as basic material with traditional composite wooden surface on both sides, thereby reducing the amount of wood material consumption. In addition, honeycomb paper core can also be used to fill door. Obviously, the use of honeycomb composite materials in the furniture manufacturing industry greatly reduces wood consumption, and honeycomb composite board is light weight, not easy deformed, etc., it is the best choice to replace wood.

2. Application in product packaging
       A. cushion
       Honeycomb composite board has good cushioning property, is a alternative to EPS foam liner as underlay, isolation panels, corner pads, but also can be die-molding to device for positioning.
       B. paper pallet
         Honeycomb composite board has good plane compression performance, which can be used exclusively for the top and bottom panels of pallet, it can also be used as pallet stringers and pads. Paper pallet is the product must be used in China export products transshipment and storage. It is a replacement of wooden pallet to lower pallet cost.
       C. crate
         Honeycomb composite board can be processed into cartons like corrugated boxes. Since honeycomb composite board is thicker than corrugated board which has bending and binding difficulties, using connected structure with paper corned ,then combined into a box has been used for a variety of packaging. It has been widely used in electric cars, scooters, smoke machines, industrial packaging, color TV, refrigerator, air conditioning,appliance packaging, electronic products, machinery, power tools, bearings and other heavy packaging.
 

III) Prospect of honeycomb composites material
In recent years, with the shortage of wood, its price soared. Honeycomb material is also attracting more attention and support from national authorities, becoming a hot spot for investment in high-tech areas in recent years. Its advantage is reflected in the following points:
1, Honeycomb composite material is a green packaging material, saving the timber, beautify the environment, more important is to break down barriers set by United States, Canada and European Union on China's trade export packing.
2, Quantity of timber imported is increasing, timber prices are rising, wood packaging is no longer low-cost, use of honeycomb composite materials is imperative. Honeycomb board has lower prices, conform to the price rule.
3, Honeycomb composite material is necessary for protecting the environment and sustainable development. And now some of the EPS cushioning material has a serious impact on the environment. Honeycomb board can be recycled, and is the best choice to replace EPS.

Advantage of honeycomb cardboard

Honeycomb cardboard, has lightweight, inexpensive, high strength, recyclability and other characteristics, are very popular in markets, especially in Netherlands, the United States, Japan and other developed countries and regions. It has become a new type of green packaging for saving resources and protecting environment. Honeycomb cardboard packaging box is ideal for Chinese export products packaging. With extending its applications, on one hand it can reduce the breakage rate of commodity during circulation process, on the other hand replacing wooden boxes benefits environment protection.
Features:
(1) Light weight, less materials consumption, low cost. Compare honeycomb interlay structure with other kinds of metal structure of board, it has maximum strength / weight ratio, and thus its manufactures performance / price ratio is better, this is the key to the success of honeycomb cardboard.
(2) High strength, smooth surface, not easy deformed. Honeycomb interlay structure is approximate isotropic, has good structural stability and not easily deformed. Its outstanding compressive strength and flexural capacity is the most important characteristic of box-type packaging materials needed.
(3) Impact resistance, good buffer. Honeycomb cardboard is made of paper core and tissue paper, it has better flexibility and resiliency. A unique honeycomb interlay structure provides excellent cushioning ability. It has a higher per unit volume energy absorption values in all buffer materials. High-thickness honeycomb cardboard can replace EPS foam cushion which are used largely nowaday.
(4) Sound absorption, thermal insulation. Internal of honeycomb interlay structure is a closed chamber, which is filled with air, therefore it has a very good acoustic insulation properties.
(5) Pollution-free, which conform to the modern trend of environmental protection. Honeycomb cardboard is entirely made of recyclable paper material, it can be one hundred percent recycled after use.
Performance Comparison
Testing performance on corrugated cardboard and Honeycomb cardboard which both have same cover paper, core paper, same amount of paper used and same bonding glue used between core and cover pager. Test data as shown in Table 1.

Specified by the data:
(1)  Honeycomb cardboard has much higher flat crush strength than corrugated cardboard, and with same amount of supplies, honeycomb cardboard's flat crush strength decreases when honeycomb pore size increases.
(2) Honeycomb cardboard's lateral compressive strength decreases when honeycomb pore size increases; corrugated board has much higher lateral compressive strength than honeycomb cardboard, while the lateral side of the compressive strength is less than honeycomb cardboard.
(3) Honeycomb cardboard has higher bending strength than corrugated cardboard , it's bending strength increases when honeycomb pore size increases.
(4) Corrugated cardboard has higher Peel strength than honeycomb cardboard; honeycomb cardboard's peel strength increases when honeycomb pore size decreases.
(5) Both honeycomb cardboard and corrugated cardboard have similar punture strength.

As can be seen from the above analysis, corrugated cardboard and honeycomb cardboard develop until today, one already reached the limit, one is faltering. It is necessary to develop a new world. If combine corrugated cardboard  and honeycomb cardboard together, we can take advantage of both cardboards. The lateral compressive strength and compressive strength of composite cardboard can be improved. In addition, in production of packaging box, if use corrugated box as box body, and use honeycomb cardboard as padding on the four walls inside the box, then it can improve packaging box anti-shock, compression resistance, thermal insulation, anti-puncture capacity and carrying capacity. Therefore, corrugated cardboard and honeycomb cardboard should not become competitors with each other at this stage, but should become cooperative partners in production and application. Honeycomb cardboard and corrugated cardboard have their own advantages. To sum up, corrugated cardboard advantages: powerful, product maturity, abundant talent, but industry overproduction, it needs to develop new markets urgently. Honeycomb cardboard advantages: large market, new products, good benefits, but the business is small, development is slow, and has many difficulties, hope to gain support from corrugated cardboard industry. So the two should be combined, complement advantages and  develop together, this is the inevitable trend of scientific development.