Treesearch

Lignocellulosic plant biomass is recognized as an alternative resource for sustainable production of liquid fuels, chemicals, and polymeric materials through the biorefining concept. The sugar platform is one of the promising approaches for commercial conversion of cellulose and/or hemicelluloses in plant biomass into the targeted products biologically and/or chemically through carbohydrate saccharification. However, efficient, and sustainable sugar production from lignocellulose remains a great challenge because of the natural recalcitrance of lignocellulose to deconstruction. This review...

Apparent viscosities of Wiley milled white birch at various particulate sizes, suspension concentrations, and solvent and acid concentrations were measured as a function of temperature. Apparent viscosities decreased reversibly with increasing temperature below 150 °C in water in the absence of acid and/or solvent. At temperatures above 150 °C, or with added solvent or acid, the variation of the apparent viscosities with temperature became irreversible. The steady-state shear dependent behavior is well described by a Bingham model where the yield stress is a strong function of temperature...

In aggregate, February 2022 housing data were mostly positive. Housing starts were buoyed by an extraordinary surge in 2 to 4 unit starts (53,000 units), the most since August 2004 (67,000 units). Permits were subdued and this may be a result of the difficulties in completing houses. Total housing units under construction were the most since early 1973. Housing completions are problematic as they are restrained due to building materials and product shortages, combined with other factors. New and existing house sales also were subdued, primarily due to a lack of available inventory for...

Cross-laminated timber (CLT) construction has been gaining popularity in North America. However, CLT-based seismic force resisting systems are not recognized in current U.S. design codes, which is among the many challenges preventing widespread adoption of CLT in the United States. The purpose of this study was to investigate the seismic behavior of CLT-based shear wall systems and to determine seismic performance factors, namely, the response modification factor (R factor), the system overstrength factor(Ω), and the deflection amplification factor (Cd), using the FEMA P695 procedure. Nine...

The 22nd International Nondestructive Testing and Evaluation of Wood Symposium was hosted by the Université Laval in Quebec City, Canada, May 24–27, 2022. 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 groups to share research results, products, and technology for evaluating a wide range of wood products, including standing trees, logs, structural lumber, engineered wood products, and wood...

A lignin-derived mesoporous carbon solid acid catalyst (LDMCC) was prepared using alkali lignin as a carbon source and KCl as a salt template to generate a carbon support that was carboxylated with acrylic acid. The prepared LDMCCs were characterized by various spectroscopies (FTIR, XPS, XRD, Raman), porosity determinations (BET), microscopies (SEM, TEM), thermogravimetric analysis, and acid-base titration. The LDMCC produced at the highest carbonization temperature (900 °C) possesses a rich porous structure, high specific surface area (1197.1 m2 ⋅g−1), large pore volume (0.63 cm3 ⋅g−1),...

Fungal and enzymatic pre-treatments have long been used to activate the surface of lignocellulosic biomass particles or fibers to promote adhesion or develop novel composite materials and other products. Research into mycelium-based bio-composites, i.e. products in which constituents are bonded by fungal mycelium, is quite new and still growing. There has also been a significant amount of attention given to these materials by the industry and private sector. These bio-composites can be produced by enzymatically or fungally treating lignoicellulosic substrates and then either molding them...

Background: Illegal logging is a global crisis with significant environmental, economic, and social consequences. Efforts to combat it call for forensic methods to determine species identity, provenance, and individual identifcation of wood specimens throughout the forest products supply chain. DNA-based methodologies are the only tools with the potential to answer all three questions and the only ones that can be calibrated “non-destructively” by using leaves or other plant tissue and take advantage of publicly available DNA sequence databases. Despite the potential that DNA-based methods...

Computer vision wood identification (CVWID) has focused on laboratory studies reportingconsistently high model accuracies with greatly varying input data quality, data hygiene, andwood identification expertise. Employing examples from published literature, we demonstratethat the highly optimistic model performance in prior works may be attributed to evaluating thewrong functionality—wood specimen identification rather than the desired wood species or genusidentification—using limited datasets with data hygiene practices that violate the requirement of clearseparation between training and...

January 2022 month-over-month and year-over-year housing data were mixed. Total, single-family, and multifamily housing starts, multifamily permits, total and single-family housing completions, new house sales, and existing sales were negative month-over-month. Single-family starts and permits, total housing and single-family completions, and new sales were negative year-over-year. Completions continue to be restrained due to the inaccessibility of building materials and products, combined with other factors. Consequently, individual builders may be reluctant to start new projects while...