Applications

That being said, let's expand upon the applications of phenolic resin.For vulcanized products like tires, phenolic resins are used as enhancers to improve tire traction on roads, Furthermore, the resin is combined with sand to create metal casting molds and serves as a binding agent in materials like refractory bricks.For this reason, the majority of phenolic resin applications must include fillers to bolster the resin's integrity.Different fillers improve different aspects of the phenolic resin.One last application that must be mentioned is how popular phenolic resins are in the lumber industry.As we mentioned, phenolic resins are, unfortunately, pretty brittle.Phenolics resins are widely used in the manufacturing of oriented strand board-a wooden board similar to particle board in that it's made by adding adhesives and compressing layers of wood stranders in specific orientations, hence the name.These knife handles used to be easily recognizable since they only came in green and black, but these days, manufacturers of knives have discovered how to create these handles with a much wider array of colors

Phenolic resin is also useful as binders in friction materials.