Shives

Shives, also known as shoves, boon or hurd, are the wooden refuse removed during processing flax, hemp, or jute, as opposed to the fibres (tow).

[3][4] Shives can be used as stock in papermaking;[5][1] particleboard, hempcrete,[6] and other construction composites;[7] or bedding for animals,[5] particularly in horse stalls, which is the most common use (by weight) in Europe.

[10] The use of biomaterials for insulation boards in walls is attracting increasing interest, but wider acceptance in the construction industry has so far been slowed-down by adverse material properties.

For the hydrophobic coating with silica particles, a colloidal sol-gel dispersion was successfully synthesized by the Stöber process, characterized and deposited on hemp shive.

The treatment developed in this study could be a viable solution for use on bio-materials that need to repel liquid water, whilst preserving the integrity of the insulation panel in common environmental conditions.