Treesearch

In August, the U.S. housing market was mixed. Assessing the month-over-month data yielded increases for single-family starts and permits, housing under construction, new and existing house sales, and construction spending. On a year-over-year basis, most categories were positive, with the exceptions of multifamily starts, total and multifamily permits, and all completion categories. New house sales continued increasing, recording the largest sales number since 2006. Residential construction spending was positive month-over-month and year-over-year.

In September, most housing indictors were positive. Multifamily housing starts and permits were negative on month-over-month and year-over-year bases. Multifamily housing under construction and new house sales were negative on a month-over-month basis. Housing remains a bright spot for the U.S. economy

Cellulose nanomaterials (CNMs) are a class of materials that have recently garnered attention in felds as varied as structural materials, biomaterials, rheology modifers, construction, paper enhancement, and others. As the principal structural reinforcement of biomass giving wood its mechanical properties, CNM is strong and stif, but also nontoxic, biodegradable, and sustainable with a very large (Gton yr−1 ) source. Unfortunately, due to the relatively young nature of the feld and inherent incompatibility of CNM with most man-made materials in use today, research has tended to be more...

The performance of cellulosic materials is intimately linked to their moisture content. Over the last century, many studies have been devoted to examining the moisture uptake in equilibrium with surrounding environmental conditions. However, with the adoption of automated sorption balances in laboratories worldwide, it has become increasingly popular to study the approach to equilibrium, i.e., sorption kinetics. Recording the moisture content change between two equilibrium states produces a wealth of data, which necessitates a robust methodology for analysis. In this study, we employ...

Loblolly pine is a major fibre source for the pulp and paper industry. Herewe developed the first nonlinear models to predict the within-tree and regional variation of tracheid length and width for planted loblolly pine. Data were obtained from macerated tracheids and near-infrared spectroscopy calibration models from trees sampled in 109 stands across the southeastern United States. The fixed effects for the final tracheid length model, which included cambial age, height of disk within tree, and physiographic region, explained 71 percent of the variation with root mean square error (RMSE)...

Burgundy oil (BO) from Eastern red cedar provides resistance against termites and wood-decay fungi and is enhanced when combined with an amylose inclusion complex (AIC) containing hexadecylammonium chloride (HAC). Indirect evidence also indicated that a methanol Loblolly pine extract (LPE) was inhibitory against termites. This study compared the effects of HAC and didecyldimethylammonium chloride (DDAC) combined with LPE and BO on termites and wood-decay fungi. Southern pine was treated by vacuum/pressure impregnation and resistance evaluated after exposure to termites and decay fungi. The...

Purpose Producing biochar from forest residues can help resolve environmental issues by reducing forest fires and mitigating climate change. However, transportation and storage of biomass to a centralized facility are often cost-prohibitive and a major hurdle for the economic feasibility of producing biobased products, including biochar. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the environmental impacts and economic feasibility of manufacturing biochar from forest residues with small-scale portable production systems. Methods This study evaluated the environmental performance and...

Ghana is a nation rich in natural resources and tropical diversity, with forests covering approximately one-fifth of the country’s total land area. To ensure that future generations of Ghanaians can enjoy the benefits of such a rich forest resource, Ghana has been enacting and enforcing laws intended to ensure that wood and wood-derived products are legally sourced. Compliance with and enforcement of these laws depend in part on the availability of technical or forensic expertise to validate claims of legality through the correct identification of timber during its extraction, processing,...

Investigating plant structure is fundamental in botanical science and provides crucial knowledge for the theories of plant evolution, ecophysiology and for the biotechnological practices. Modern plant anatomy often targets the formation, localization and characterization of cellulosic, lignifed or suberized cell walls. While classical methods developed in the 1960s are still popular, recent innovations in tissue preparation, fuorescence staining and microscopy equipment offer advantages to the traditional practices for investigation of the complex lignocellulosic walls. Our goal is to...

A planetary ball milling was applied as a pretreatment of chitin powder to prepare precursors for chitin nanofiber (ChNF) production. The study aims to examine the effects of ball milling conditions (dry milling, and wet milling in neutral and acidic aqueous medium) on the degree of pre-fibrillation of the ChNF precursors and the characteristics of the resulting nanofibers. The results showed that no fibrous-morphology ChNFs were obtained using dry ball milling followed by high-pressure homogenization (HPH), but fibrous-morphology ChNFs were successfully prepared using wet ball milling as...