Particleboard, engineered wood products as part of a large family of wood composite materials, developed in use mainly in the 1950s and 1960s to utilize inferior wood and wood waste when good-quality wood was in short supply; the annual production capacity worldwide is over 100 million m³. It is also necessary to have a lot of wood raw material for its production, although raw material resources are limited on our planet. In addition to the main wood species, it is therefore possible to think about the wider use of alternative, lesser-known European species of alder, larch, and birch in particleboard production. These three wood species represent an eco-friendly and sustainable wood alternative to the conventional wood raw materials used. This review confirms the diversity of the use of these three species in different fields and proves their suitability in relation to particleboard production. Fundamental research is ongoing in certain universities to determine the proportional shares of use of these tree species in particleboard (in a certain weight proportion in their core layers) for the purpose of formulating the correct technology shares and rules for their application in the wood-based panel industry.

Ukrainian companies mainly use birch in the manufacture of plywood, but species, such as black alder, are not yet widely used in the manufacture of plywood due to their poorer properties. It is well known that thermal compression is often used to improve the properties of solid wood. Good lay-up schemes of veneer can maximize the advantages and minimize the disadvantages of these wood species, and generally improve the utility value of the plywood. This research aimed to develop plywood panels with two wood species and two types of veneer treatments in order to evaluate the influences of different lay-up schemes on the properties of the plywood. Five-layer plywood panels were formed with 16 different lay-up schemes using birch (Betula verrucosa Ehrh.) (B) and black alder (Alnus glutinosa L.) (A) veneers, which were non-densified (N) and thermally densified (D). The different lay-up schemes were used to identify opportunities to improve the mechanical and physical properties of the plywood by replacing the birch veneer in the plywood structure with an alternative alder veneer. The veneer sheets were thermally densified in a laboratory hot press at a temperature of 180 °C and pressure of 2 MPa for 3 min. The conducted study showed that the bending strength, modulus of elasticity and shear strength of mixed-species plywood (B^D–A^N–A^N–A^N–B^D) increased by up to 31.5%, 34.4% and 16.8%, respectively, in comparison to those properties of alder plywood from non-densified veneer (A^N–A^N–A^N–A^N–A^N), by positioning alder non-densified veneers in the core layers and birch densified veneers in the outer layers. Moreover, the surface roughness of plywood panels with outer layers of birch veneer was lower than that of panels with outer layers of alder veneer. It was shown that non-treated alder veneer, despite exhibiting somewhat lower strength properties than birch veneer, could be successfully used with proper lay-up schemes in the veneer-based products industry.

The wood-based panel industry in Europe, which is dominated by the use of Norway spruce, will face new challenges due to environmental changes and the bark-beetle calamity, which started a new era of forestry. To explore the possibility of replacing spruce with other wood species, juvenile wood of nine underutilized wood species (Scots pine, European larch, poplar, willow, alder, birch, European beech, English oak and hornbeam) were used to make randomly oriented strand boards (OSBs). Single-layer OSBs were produced with 3% pMDI resin and 0.5% wax. Standard physical and mechanical properties were measured. The bending strength (MOR) values showed that there was no statistically significant difference between the values for, on the one hand, spruce (34.6 MPa) and, on the other, larch (25.9 MPa), poplar (25.2 MPa), willow (27.8 MPa), alder (34.3 MPa) or birch (27.1 MPa). A similar trend was found for the boards modulus of elasticity (MOE). The highest MOE values of 5,185 MPa and 4,472 MPa were found for spruce and alder, respectively. There was no significant difference between spruce and other wood species in internal bond strength. Boards made from high-density wood species showed better physical performance, whereas those made from low-density wood species (except pine) gave better mechanical properties. Strand-generalized characteristics, such as the slenderness ratio and specific surface, were analyzed for all investigated physical and mechanical properties. European larch, poplar, willow, and alder are potential wood species for manufacturing OSBs in future without mixing species, as they can replace spruce in the wood-based panel industry.