# Some of the Physical and Mechanical Properties of
## 2 Material and Methods
### Resistance Evaluation of the Panels Against Fungus and Termite Exposure  
The biological resistance of particleboard panels was carried out using the Indonesian National Standard (SNI) 7207-2006 [30] method regarding the resistance of wood products against wood-destroying organisms. The wood-destroying organisms, namely subterranean termites _Coptoremes curvignathus_ Holmgren (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) and the wood-decay fungus _Schizophrenia commune_ were used to evaluate the biological resistance of the samples.  
Particleboard samples were cut to triplicate specimens of 25 \(\times\) 25 \(\times\) 10 mm. The test specimens were then put in an oven at a temperature of 60 \(\pm\) 2 \({}^{\circ}\)C for 48 h and weighed to obtain the wood weight (W\({}_{1}\)) before any tests were carried out. Fine sand as the substrate material and test bottles were sterilized separately by inserting them into a laminar flow hood for 48 h.  
Each specimen was then inserted into a test bottle so that the broadest edge touched the wall of the bottle and the specimen was tilted. Then, 200 g of sterilized sand was put into the bottle to cover the specimens and 50 mL of water was added to keep the moisture of sand around 7%. A total of 200 healthy and active worker subterranean termites were introduced into each test bottle before it was closed with aluminum foil and stored in a dark room at 28 \(\pm\) 2 \({}^{\circ}\)C and humidity of around 65% for 4 weeks. The activity of the termites in the bottle was weekly observed. After the 4 weeks period of time, the specimens were removed from the bottles and heated to a temperature of 60 \(\pm\) 2 \({}^{\circ}\)C for 48 h to obtain the final weight (W\({}_{2}\)). This weight was used to calculate the specimens' mass loss during the test. The percentage mass loss of the individual wood specimens was calculated by the difference in weights according to the following equation: % Mass loss = (W\({}_{1}-W_{2}\))/W\({}_{1}\)\(\times\) 100, where W\({}_{1}\) is the weight of oven-dried wood specimen before the test (g) and W\({}_{2}\) is the weight of oven-dried wood specimen after the test (g).  
The particleboard specimens with dimensions of 50 \(\times\) 25 \(\times\) 10 mm were used for the decay test. All of the specimens were dried in an oven at a temperature of 103 \(\pm\) 2 \({}^{\circ}\)C for 24 h to have their initial weights and then sterilized. The prepared fungal culture medium was made of potato dextrose agar. The closed petri dishes filled with a fungal culture medium were sterilized in an autoclave for 30 min with a pressure of 15 psi. Once sterile, the plate was placed flat so that the medium was at the bottom of the dish. The test fungus _S. commune_ was inoculated onto the medium and incubated for a week. Next, sterile particleboard specimens were placed in petri dishes filled with an uncontaminated testing fungal culture. After 12 weeks, the exposed specimens were cleaned of the mycelium and heated in an oven at 103 \(\pm\) 2 \({}^{\circ}\)C for 24 h before obtaining their final weight. Their mass loss was then calculated based on the weights before and after the test.  
The average values of the physical-mechanical properties of the samples were compared with the minimum required by the norm of the standard, as stipulated in Table 1. Data analysis was assessed through the analysis of variance (ANOVA) with a further comparison of means by the Student's t-test (_p_ < 0.05).