A Bibliometric Analysis on Recycling of Wood Waste as Innovative Sustainable Industrial Products

Abstract

Nowadays, industrial activities continue to generate significant waste volumes, posing new challenges in their management and treatment to avoid economic losses and energy impacts. The growing demand for wood as a crucial raw material across various sectors is resulting in a higher production of waste from end-of-life wood-based products. Thus, recycling the ever-greater volumes of waste wood represents a valuable resource for the production of novel sustainable industrial materials. Accordingly, the interest in exploring the possibilities of reusing wood waste has significantly increased in recent years, driven by the environmental impact of improper wood waste disposal. The aim of the present paper is to examine the evolution of research on wood waste utilization through an analysis of the relevant literature in the field. Specifically, information extracted from bibliometric networks is used to reveal the trends in scientific contributions and identify emerging topics. The relevant literature in the field of wood waste recycling is gathered from the Scopus database, and the VOSviewer tool is used to analyse the international research findings over the last 20 years. The obtained results indicate that the reuse of wood waste may range from their use to generate renewable energy to the development of new sustainable construction materials. In particular, the research on the wood waste reuse in the construction field has attracted significant attention only in recent years, showing that future developments should focus on the economic feasibility of its use on an industrial scale.