Indowud produces NFC board from agricultural husks to save forest

The Earth is losing forests at the rate of about 50 football fields every minute, and to solve this problem Indowud, a three-year-old company with operations in the Chennai outskirts is producing a natural fibre composite (NFC) board from agricultural husks.

Founder of Indowud, and a former plywood entrepreneur, BL Bengani, said Indowud NFC is wood without wood. Bengani established Uniply, which he sold in 2015.

Indowud NFC boards have only agricultural husks as the basic raw material while wood fibre boards have wood particles in them, said Bengani.

The company procures about 3,000 tonnes of husks yearly. The unit’s production capacity is 5,000 tonnes to produce about 2 lakh sheets. A saving of about 10,000 cubic metres of natural wood annually, he said.

The concept of making boards from agricultural husks came during a US visit. Indowud NFC was launched in 2019 after almost two years of research.

As the current generation cares about problems like sustainability and environmental protection, it was the correct time to enter with a sustainable product, said Bengnani.

The husks are ground to powder form and then dried at 70-80 degrees to decrease the moisture content. The fibre is pulverised to obtain a fine powder. Certain additives are added, including minerals, natural, and PVC resin combinations imported from South Korea and Japan. The powder is then rolled out into plywood sheets, he said.

Indowud can be moulded in any shape and provides architects the flexibility of designing things as per their imagination while plywood cannot be bent or twisted, said Iyappan, a carpenter.

Kishore Panikkar, Partner, architectureRED, used Indowud panels to reach the seamless sinuous form of the central helical staircase in Chennai's residential project. The material lends itself to bending easily and in two directions while maintaining stability and strength.

The availability of agricultural husks is plentiful near the company’s plant located at Gummidipoondi on the Chennai-Kolkata Highway. This offers an incremental revenue to the farmers, who would otherwise dump these agricultural husks as waste.

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