In pursuit of developing value added products from sulfite-rich scrubber material, e.g., low-density panels, carpet underlayment, siding, pre-cast building material, lumber panels, particle and wafer type boards, the following four experimental tasks are proposed:   A comprehensive characterization of sulfite-rich scrubber materials produced by power plant generation.  Specifically, the mercury, selenium, arsenic, boron, and organic content will be monitored The sulfite-rich scrubber material will be combined with cheap but renewable agricultural byproducts like micronized core fibers and/or micronized wheat straw, and the composites will be formulated by exploiting the natural polymers of the byproducts. The conditions under which structural composites can be formulated using injection molding and compressive molding will be evaluated. 

No such technology using sulfite-rich scrubber material currently exits.  The formulated composites will be subjected to mechanical testing to ascertain their competitiveness against commercial wood products.  After completing the preliminary phase, a comprehensive proposal will be submitted to DOE establishing the potential of developing commercially viable structural composites from sulfite-rich scrubber material.