Treesearch

Fresh and clean water is highly demanded throughout the world. To effectively address the need, nanomaterials enabled nanotechnology has been explored as a means of more efficient, reliable, and environmentally friendly approach towards water treatment practices. One concern in adopting nanomaterials is how to retrieve them from water body to avoid secondary contamination. In this work, the earth abundant and sustainable wood, e.g., basswood, was selected and carbonized into porous carbon as host skeleton, and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), e.g., MOF-199 with extremely high surface area,...

Soy is considered one of the most promising natural materials for manufacturing wood adhesives due to its low cost, high protein content, and ready availability. However, more cost-effective ways of improving its wet shear strength are needed to achieve wider market acceptance. Protein adhesive wet strength depends on the use of (typically expensive) crosslinking additives as well as the processing/denaturation of the protein. It has been commonly stated in the literature that protein denaturation leads to higher bond strength by activating the surface and exposing the reactive groups....

During the past two decades, tremendous progress has been made in the development of biodegradable polymeric materials for various industrial applications, including human and veterinary medicine. They are promising alternatives to commonly used non-degradable polymers to combat the global plastic waste crisis. Among biodegradable polymers used, or potentially applicable to, veterinary medicine are natural polysaccharides, such as chitin, chitosan, and cellulose as well as various polyesters, including poly(ε-caprolactone), polylactic acid, poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid), and polyhydroxyalka...

Incorporating cellulose nanofibers into concrete has a positive impact on its strength. This study evaluated how cellulose nanofiber-reinforced concrete affected the economic and environmental performance compared to conventional concrete. The estimated minimum selling price per unit mass (m3) per unit compressive strength (MPa) of cellulose nanofiber-reinforced concrete mixture is 12 % lower ($2.52/m3/MPa) compared to the minimum selling price of conventional concrete mixture ($2.87/m3/MPa). However, when comparing the minimum selling price on a mass basis, the cellulose nanofiber-reinforc...

Research on new conservation treatments for historical wood requires considerable amounts of appropriate wood material, which is hard to acquire. Thus, we produced biologically and chemically degraded model wood that could be used as a representative material in future research on consolidating agents. Using chemical composition determinations, we found that fungal decay targeted mainly polysaccharides, while alkaline treatment mostly reduced hemicelluloses and lignin content. X-ray and neutron scattering showed that all decayed samples had increased disorder in microfibril alignment and...

Economic feasibility of wood-based biorefinery depends on the development of efficient, environmentally acceptable, robust, and low-cost pretreatment technologies for the production of high-value products. Hydrothermal pretreatment successfully meets these needs because it is environmentally friendly and cost-efficient. Not only does this pretreatment effectively reduce the recalcitrance of wood to further conversion, it also provides suitable byproduct streams for the production of a broad palette of value-added products. High-value coproducts have been recognized as essential to the...

Modeling of moisture transfer in porous materials is typically partitioned into liquid transport and vapor diffusion. Coefficients for liquid transport are often derived from laboratory measurements of water absorption by partial immersion. Although the assumption that capillary liquid transport is dominant while vapor diffusion is negligible is a reasonable assumption for mineral-based materials, recent work indicates that it is not representative of water absorption in wood across the grain. This article builds on earlier work and develops an improved engineering model for liquid water...

Water vapor sorption is a fundamental property of cellulosic materials. Numerous theoretical and empirical models have been developed to describe the relationship between water activity, temperature, and equilibrium moisture content (EMC). However, a meaningful connection between model parameters and thermodynamic properties related to the sorption process is often lacking. In cases where models yield thermodynamic properties, such as through use of the Clausius-Clapeyron equation, these are limited to temperatures where the ideal gas equation is applicable. In this paper we advance a...

This study aimed to investigate the intrinsic efficiency of renewable alcohols, applied under autocatalytic conditions, for removing lignin from aspen and hot-water-extracted aspen while substantially preserving the lignin structure so as to facilitate various valorization strategies. Ethylene glycol (EG), propylene glycol (PG), 1,4-butanediol (BDO), ethanol (EtOH), an tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol (THFA) were evaluated based on their lignin solubilization ability, expressed as the relative energy difference (RED) following the principles of the Hansen solubility theory. The findings indicate...

The 23rd International Nondestructive Testing and Evaluation of Wood Symposium was hosted by the School of Agricultural Engineering of the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (FEAGRI/ UNICAMP) and the Brazilian Association of Nondestructive Testing and Evaluation (ABENDI). The symposium was held in Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, on September 17–21, 2024. This symposium was a forum for those involved in nondestructive testing and evaluation (NDT/NDE) of wood and brought together many international researchers, NDT/NDE users, suppliers, representatives from various government agencies, and other...