Treesearch

In this study, the applicability of a multiple regression equation for estimating air drying times of red oak, sugar maple, and ponderosa pine lumber was evaluated. The equation allows prediction of estimated air drying times from historic weather records of temperature and relative humidity at any desired location.

The chemical composition of a variety of agricultural biomass samples was analyzed with near infrared spectroscopy and pyrolysis molecular beam mass spectroscopy. These samples were selected from a wide array of agricultural residue samples and included residues that had been subjected to a variety of di2erent treatments including solvent extractions and chemical modifications. This analysis showed that both spectroscopic tools, coupled with multivariate analytical techniques, could be used to differentiate the samples and accurately predict the chemical composition of this disparate set...

In economics, primary inputs or factors of production define the term ‘resources.’ Resources include land resources (plants, animals, and minerals), labor, capital, and entrepreneurship. Almost all pulp and paper fiber resources are plant materials obtained from trees or agricultural crops. These resources encompass plant materials harvested directly from the land (wood, straw, bamboo, etc.), plant material byproducts or residuals from other manufacturing processes (wood chips from sawmills, bagasse fiber from sugarcane processing, cotton linter, etc.), and fibers recovered from recycled...

Wood is a hygroscopic resource that was designed to perform, in nature, in a wet environment. Nature is programmed to recycle wood in a timely way through biological, thermal, aqueous, photochemical, chemical, and mechanical degradations. In simple terms, nature builds wood from carbon dioxide and water and has all the tools to recycle it back to the starting chemicals. We harvest a green tree and convert it into dry products, and nature. with its arsenal of degrading reactions, starts to reclaim it at its first opportunity. The properties of any resource are, in general, a result of the...

The abrupt millennial-scale changes associated with the Younger Dryas (YD) event (“chronozone”) near the dawn of the Holocene are at least hemispheric, if not global, in extent. Evidence for the YD cold excursion is abundant in Europe but fairly meager in central North America. We are engaged in an investigation of high-resolution environmental changes in mid-North America over several millennia (about 10,000 to 14,000 BP) during the Late Glacial-Early Holocene transition, including the YD interval. Several sites containing logs or stumps have been identified and we are in the process of...

Soy-based glues were very popular early in the 20th century. These adhesives were low cost and allowed for excellent performance in plywood panels as long as they were kept dry. These adhesives were quickly supplanted by lower cost, better performing petroleum-based resins in the middle half of the century. With the recent increase in the price of petroleum, soy-based resins may again be considered attractive alternatives if some of their previous performance limitations can be overcome. This paper provides a detailed look into a new soy-based adhesive system that offers board manufacturers...

Polyoxometalates (POMs), of which alpha-Keggin anions are representative, are a diverse and rapidly growing class of water-soluble cluster-anion structures with applications ranging from molecular catalysis to materials. [1] POMs are inexpensive, minimally or non-toxic, negatively charged clusters comprised of early transition-metals, usually in their do electronic configurations (e.g. W(VI), Mo(VI), V(V), Nb(V), Ti(IV)), bridged by oxygens (formally oxide, or occasionally hydroxide ions). POMs have a number of attributes that render them attractive for applications in catalysis[2] and...

Fiberboard sandwich panels constructed of a structural core with exterior skins can be produced with high strength and stiffness values that compare to other wood-based panels. At the same time, as much as two-thirds less material is used in the process compared to commercial wood composite products. This offers large savings in raw material and weight. The panel technology is promising in construction, furniture, and packaging applications. The manufacturing process is compatible with a wide range of fiber types and qualities. The three-dimensional fiberboard is manufactured from no- or...

Secondary processing of non-woven wood and wood/thermoplastic fiber mats is generally performed using compression molding, where heated platens or dies form the final product. Although the study and use of wood-fiber composites is widespread, few research efforts have explicitly described the fundamentals of mat consolidation. In contrast, the wood composite literature has prolifically addressed the compression of wood-strand composites. Models developed for wood-strand composites and powders are reviewed and applied to experimental data for compression of wood and wood/polypropylene (PP)...

Typically the paper physicist considers pulp suspensions greater than 0.5% consistency as high consistency. In our research on cellulose fibre- reinforced engineering plastics we have had to develop a two-step method for the processing of fibers suspensions at ultrahigh consistencies (consistencies greater than 30%).