Treesearch

Carbon fibres (CFs) are indispensable for lightweight structural engineering, yet their widespread adoption is stifled by the high cost and environmental toll of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) precursors. While substituting PAN with low-footprint alternatives such as lignin or carbon black reduces emissions, the resulting fibres typically suffer from mechanical degradation caused by poorly integrated fillers. Here we report an electrified carbon-fibre upgrading strategy that transforms low-cost, carbon-black-loaded PAN precursors into high-performance CFs by incorporating methane (CH4)-derived...

Wood is preferred as a building material due to its high strength, low weight, and ability to retain many of its properties even at moderately high temperatures. However, numerous wood adhesives lose strength as the temperature increases, especially around 200°C. This study examined bond strength at temperatures above that required for initiation of wood degradation for bonds of wood-to-wood and wood-to-aluminum using two oil-based adhesives (resole phenolics and epoxies) and two bio-based adhesives (soy protein isolate and ovalbumin from egg whites). The phenolics not only gave the best...

Proteins were useful as adhesives for wood bonding, including those derived from animals (collagen, casein, ovalbumin, and blood), and plants (soy, canola, and cottonseed). These proteins have different structures that dictate their wood adhesive performance. Hydrolyzed collagens from animal hides and bones are hot-melt adhesives suitable for paper applications with durability improved by crosslinking. Soy flour adhesives, even with a crosslinker, are amphiphilic, giving moderate wet-strength wood bonds, while with ovalbumin (egg whites) curing exposes hydrophobic surfaces leading to high...

We have determined the X-ray crystallographic protein structure of endo-1,4-β-xylanase (EX) A from Anaerobacterium chartisolvens (AchXyn30A), a homologue of the recent biochemically characterized glycoside hydrolase family 30, subfamily 12 (GH30_12) EX from Acetivibrio clariflavus (AcXyn30B). The N-terminal GH30 catalytic domains (CDs) of these two enzymes share approximately 63% amino-acid sequence identity and the full-length proteins each consist of the GH30_12 CD, a family 6 carbohydrate-binding module and a C-terminal dockerin domain. In this report, we offer additional support for...

Food waste is a globally significant issue; up to 50 percent of fruit is lost from the time it is harvested until it is consumed. A new innovation from the Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory, Washington State University, and the University of Florida could address this issue while providing a new outlet and use for wood pulp. Barrier coatings for fruit made from naturally-derived, biodegradable compounds could be a safe and effective way to preserve fruit. These coatings are applied to the exterior of fruit peels with the intention of keeping the fruit fresher for longer.In their...

The International Nondestructive Testing and Evaluation of Wood Symposium series was initiated by Washington State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) in 1963 with the convening of a symposium on the topic of nondestructive testing of wood at FPL. Including that meeting, 23 symposia focused on nondestructive testing and evaluation of wood have been held over the last 60 years at various sites around the world. The technical content of these symposia has been captured and published in proceedings. The proceedings from...

The packaging sector presents a significant sustainability challenge, particularly due to the prevalence of plastic packaging. There is a growing interest in sustainable packaging alternatives. The main challenge is to develop packaging with comparable and competitive characteristics. In this context, this manuscript aims to evaluate the performance of lignin-based polyurethane applied as a coating on recycled linerboard. Industrial softwood kraft lignin was fully characterized in terms of purity, functional groups (FTIR and 31P NMR) and molecular weight (GPC). Aiming at coating application...

Loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) is the most important commercial tree species in southeastern U.S. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in utilizing loblolly pine wood and harvest residues consisting of bark, branches, needles, and wood, as a viable renewable feedstock to meet growing energy, chemical, and biomaterial demand. Feedstock chemical compositions affect the conversion efficiency and product yields, but these properties are costly and laborious to measure. Calibration models capable of rapid and precise estimation of these properties were developed using near-infrared...

Innovation in packaging design will be facilitated by a simple test method to indicate whether a product is compatible with paper recycling. Three laboratories cooperated on the development of a method and used it on linerboard, coated paperboard, wet-strength paperboard, and white copy paper. This test method includes pulping and screening. The data presented here illustrate the factors affecting the results of a bench-scale test. Our observations show that a bench-scale test can give reproducible results for yield of less than 5%. We also present an approach to contaminant assessment...

This paper presents the results of the first systematic study aimed at defining the chronology, provenience and material components of 14 distinctive wood carvings featuring jaguar and raptorial bird imagery broadly attributed to northeastern South America, centred on Brazil’s Trombetas River region. These carvings, largely confined to drug-related paraphernalia and ceremonial objects (trumpets, rattles, staffs/sceptres and a hafted anchor axe), were part of antiquarian collections deposited in European museums mainly in the 19th century, with very little associated information. 14C AMS...