is smooth. Thus, there were fewer trichomes in the leaf sheath part
than in the leaf blade part, but the IB of leaf sheath powder was
lower than that of leaf blade powder. The reason for this discrepancy
is that not only the physical condition of the surface of particles
but also the chemical composition of raw materials might strongly
influence self-bonding.
From Fig. 3, the TS of stem powder was the lowest, followed by
leaf blade powder and leaf sheath powder. Only stem powder met
the requirement for MDF (JIS A5905, 2014), although not all types
of raw materials could meet the requirement for particleboard (JIS
A5908, 2003). The stem part revealed lower TS than the leaf sheath
part, reflecting that the stem appeared to have a thicker waxy layer
than leaf sheath (Inglesby et al., 2005).WAvalues showed the same
trend as TS values.