WOOD RESEARCH Volume 67, Number 5, 2022
Ziwei Wang, Xianghua Yue, Jing Li, Hankun Wang, and Genlin Tian

Research on the structure and connections of pits in different cells of moso bamboo (Phyllostachys pubescens)

The plant grows within the transportation of water and nutrients, including radial and longitudinal, but bamboo only exists pits in the radial, so it plays an irreplaceable role at this moment. This study aims at giving rise to further understanding of the biological functions of pits in bamboo. Light microscopy (LM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were applied to investigate the structure and connections of bamboo pits. The results show that the arrangement of pits is significantly different, including alternate, scalariform and opposite arrangements. The presence or absence of the bordered on different cells is also displayed distinctively, these characteristics extremely affect the transportation of water and nutrients in bamboo.

WOOD RESEARCH Volume 61, Number 6, 2016
Xuexia Zhang, Yan Yu, Zehui Jiang, and Hankun Wang

Influence of thickness and moisture content on the mechanical properties of microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) films

Microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) films with a layered structure and controlled thickness were successfully prepared, from bamboo processing resides as the source material, using ultrasonication followed by simple vacuum filtration. The effects of thickness and moisture content on the mechanical properties of the films were then investigated. It was shown that tensile stress and elongation at break were notably affected by the thickness of the MFC film, where the tensile stress and elongation at break of the film increased from 124 to 179 MPa and 0.9 to 5.5 %, respectively, as film thickness increased from 7.4 to 205.4 μm. However, no notable effect of thickness was observed on the Young’s modulus (~10.8 GPa). It was also found that moisture content has a significant impact on the tensile properties of MFC films, in lowering the Young’s modulus from 12 to 2 GPa and tensile stress from 180 to 90 MPa, and increasing the elongation at break from 4.2 to 17.5 %, as moisture content increased from 3 to 60 %. This is due to the effect of water in softening MFC films, resulting in a reduction in strength and increase in flexibility.