Gridcore

Lightweight, high-strength panels made entirely from recycled fibers will become available this fall for use in trade show displays. Robert Noble of Gridcore Systems International (GSI) has chosen that market as the starting place for a panel system that may eventually revolutionize a whole range of industries, including low-cost housing. Gridcore’s first manufacturing facility is scheduled to begin production this fall, making panels out of old corrugated containers. Noble claims that they have developed a process that is forgiving enough to use almost any recycled paper stock, even with significant contamination.

The Gridcore technology was developed at the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, under the name Spaceboard™. Gridcore panels are made by pouring a slurry of cellulose or other fibers onto a rubber mold shaped like a waffle iron. Excess water is then sucked out through pores in the mold, and the fibers are heat-pressed into a solid panel with one side smooth and a square grid pattern on the other. No binders are needed, according to Noble, because, as with paper, the hydrogen bond between the cellulose fibers provides all the strength needed. Two of these panels are then glued together with their smooth sides facing out, to create a single high-strength panel. The factory is set up to make 4' x 10' sheets of varying thicknesses.