Preparation, chemical constituents and antimicrobial activity of pyroligneous acids from salix psammophila branches

In order to improve the additional values of Salix psammophila bio-waste, pyroligneous acids (PAs) from Salix psammophila branches were extracted by the pyrolysis process at two temperature ranges: 90-380°C and 380-550°C. The chemical constituents and antimicrobial activities of PAs were investigated in detail. The GC-MS results showed that 34 compounds were identified from the two kinds of PAs. The main components were organic acids and ketones for PA at 90-380°C, while they were organic acids and phenols for PA at 380-550°C. The total content of acids and phenols was as high as 67.96% for PA at 380-550°C, which contributed to the strong antimicrobial activity. Two PAs both showed good antimicrobial activities for five pathogenic fungi and two pathogenic bacteria, especially against Verticillium dahlia. Compared with the antimicrobial activity of PA at 90-380°C, PA at 380-550°C showed greater antifungal activity but against Fusarium oxysporum.

Analytical study on axial and eccentric compressive behavior of poplar column strengthened by BFRP

In this work, the compression behaviour of the Xinjiang poplar column was reinforced by basalt fibre reinforced polymer (BFRP) strips with different reinforced configurations, and the numerical simulations were performed on the axial and eccentric compressions of poplar columns unreinforced and reinforced with BFRP to assess the effect of the bearing capacity and deformation of the columns. The results show that the use of BFRP to reinforce the Xinjiang poplar column effectively improves its axial compressive bearing capacity (axial compression) and bending bearing capacity (eccentric compression), and at the same time, the bearing capacity and stiffness of the columns strengthened by BFRP increased with the bonding area of BFRP.

Effect of smoothing in calender and hot stamping machine on the properties of coated paperboards for printed electronics

The methods of coated paperboards smoothing with a hot stamping machine using a smooth metal die and a conventional calender were compared. The printing roughness required for printing electrical and electronic components was achieved by both smoothing methods. The printing roughness of the coated paperboards decreased after hot stamping by 18 to 42% and after calendering by 22 to 41% depending on the grade of coated paperboard. The stiffness of coated paperboards decreased after hot stamping by only 4 to 21%, while by up to 38 to 51% after calendering. The ratio of specific stiffness and printing roughness of coated paperboards after hot stamping ranged from 2.5 to 8.1 mN. μm-2 and after calendering from 2.0 to 6.7 mN. μm-2. The stiffness of the coated paperboards decreased less after hot stamping, and that only in the printed electronics area, while after calendering the stiffness decreased significantly more in the whole profile. It can be assumed that packaging made from coated paperboards smoothed by hot stamping will have a lower weight and thus lower costs than packaging from calendered coated paperboards.

Effect of open-holes on mechanical properties of wood composite materials

A few variations of open-holes in wood-based pieces, particle board and plywood were modeled in this article. The modulus of elasticity and the coefficient of damping for these pieces were determined using static and dynamic methods and the effect of holes of different quantity and size on mechanical properties were evaluated. As regards to wood particle boards, it was found that the modulus of elasticity decreased to10% after drilling holes, and the coefficient of damping increased to 13%. With regard to plywood pieces these changes were up to 14.5% and up to 21.5%, respectively.

Effects of modification with melamine–urea–formaldehyde resin on the properties of urea pretreated eucalyptus

Eucalyptus urophylla was treated with melamine-urea-formaldehyde resin (MUF) after pretreatment with urea solution. The properties of the wood were then determined. The weight percent gain (WPG) and, antiswelling efficiencies (ASE) of the wood treated with urea+MUF were 14% and, 45% higher than those of untreated wood, respectively. The water absorption (WA) of the wood treated with urea+MUF was decreased approximately 50% lower than that of the untreated wood. However, the mechanical properties of the wood treated with urea+MUF were weakened due to the destruction of the structure of wood. An X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis revealed that the atomic concentration ratio of O/C was increased. The ratio of C1 was decreased as the lignin and extractives contents were decreased, while the ratios of C2 and C3 were increased. The urea solution pretreatment was conducive to the impregnation of wood functional modifiers.

Influence of size effect on the bearing capacity of the axially compressed components of corn straw integrated material and its calculation method

Our paper proposed a new type of environmentally friendly biomass material, corn straw integrated material (CSIM). In this paper, the ultimate bearing capacity of the axially compressed components under parallel, vertical and combined texture-integrated methods are compared and analyzed through the experimental research. The influence of size effect on the bearing capacity of the axially compressed components of the CSIM is determined, and the calculation method of the bearing capacity of the axially compressed components under vertical texture-integrated method is proposed. Results showed that the slenderness ratio of 35 was the dividing point between the strength and instability failures of the CSIM axially compressed component, and the calculated value of the revised bearing capacity calculation method agreed with the test value. The result is very close to the American National design specification for wood construction (ANSI/AF&PA NDS, 2005).

Wood chemical components and decay resistance of four common mongolian softwoods

To utilize wood resources in Mongolia, amounts of wood chemical components (hot-water extracts, 1% NaOH extracts, ethanol-toluene extracts, holocellulose, -, -, and -cellulose, Klason lignin, and ash) were determined in four common Mongolian softwoods, Pinus sylvestris, Pinus sibirica, Picea obovata, and Larix sibirica. In addition, decay resistance of heartwood was evaluated against a white-rot fungus Trametes versicolor, and a brown-rot fungus Formitopsis palustris. Among the four species, heartwood of Larix sibirica was chemically characterized by higher amounts of hot-water and 1% NaOH extracts, and lower amounts of holocellulose and Klason lignin. These characteristics may be related to the presence of arabinogalactan which is easily extracted with cold water. Mean mass loss in each softwood ranged from 6.9% to 28.1% in white-rot fungus, and from 24.8% to 48.3% in brown-rot fungus. Among four species, Pinus sibirica showed the highest decay resistance against both fungi. By the linear mixed-effects model analysis, negative relationships were found between mass loss and amounts of extracts in heartwood, suggesting that heartwood having larger amounts of extracts showed higher natural decay durability.

Chemical constituents of the stem in dalbergia sissoo

The chemical constituents of ethyl acetate extracts from heartwood and sapwood of different ages of Dalbergia sissoo were studied by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The results showed that the chemical composition of wood heartwood and sapwood is significantly different. In the vertical direction, the type of the ethyl acetate extract from Dalbergia sissoo tends to decrease from the base to the upper portion; in the horizontal direction, the type of extract gradually decreases from the center to the periphery. And it showed an increasing trend with the age of the trees. The experiment also revealed that there were significant differences in chemical components between heartwood and sapwood. We speculated that the main chemical component trismethoxyresveratrol of heartwood extract may be related to the formation of heartwood, and the specific correlation needs to be further verified.

Extractive contents of the juvenile stemwood and bark of teak

Teak wood is used at the juvenile stage due to short-rotation, therefore, this study aims to describe the extractive content of stem, bark, branch, and twig parts of the wood as value-added chemicals from secondary metabolites. Moreover, the main stems comprise of sapwood, heartwood, and bark while the branch and twig are made of sapwood together with bark. In this study, the sample trees were 6 and 8 years old with three replications from clonal superior teak wood and were extracted using n-hexane, methanol, and hot water as the solvents. The average of n-hexane, methanol, hot water, and total extractives ranged from 0.49 to 2.77%, 2.27 to 17.76%, 0.65 to 7.47%, and 5.96 to 25.40%, respectively. Furthermore, the total phenolic content from soluble n-hexane and methanol extracts ranged from 162.16 to 295.24 mg GAE/g, while the total soluble polysaccharides ranged from 166.28 to 423.97 mg GluE/g. The results showed that the 8-year-samples had higher values in methanol extractive content (MEC) and lower in hot-water extractive content (HWEC) than the 6-year-old trees. In addition, the bark together with sapwood in branch and twig parts had higher concentrations of MEC and total extractive content (TEC) compared to the main stems. For radial direction, MEC, HWEC, and TEC levels were greater in bark than in other parts. The branch and twig parts also had higher phenolic concentrations compared to the main stem at the base part. Meanwhile, the sapwood at the branch and twig parts have higher total soluble polysaccharide concentration compared to the main stem.

Research on bamboo defect segmentation and classification based on improved u-net network

In this paper, computer vision technology is used to quickly and accurately identify and classify the surface defects of processed bamboo, which overcomes the low efficiency of manual identification. The datasets consist of 6360 defective bamboo mat images of four categories taken by the author at the same position, which are split at a ratio of 8:2 for training and testing. In this experiment, we improved the U-net to segment the datasets and use VGG16, GoogLeNet and ResNet50 with attention mechanism for classification and comparison. The experimental results show that the accuracy of this method is 5.65% higher than the commonly used neural network method. The highest accuracy rate is 99.2%.

Effects of liquid nitrogen in hardly impregnable fir wood

The main purpose of this study was to develop new methods to eliminate the problems encountered during the impregnation of wood material, and in this context, to improve the retention of wood material by using liquefied nitrogen. Uludağ Fir (Abies nordmanniana subsp. Bornmulleriana) was used as wood material impregnated with Tanalith-E, Immersol aqua and borax. The effects of liquid nitrogen and the amount of retention on the mechanical properties were investigated. Application of liquid nitrogen before impregnation has increased the retention in fir wood by an average of 150-200% in all impregnation methods, compared to the groups without liquid nitrogen application. Despite this increase in retention amounts, no significant changes were observed in mechanical properties due to the application of liquid nitrogen.

Physical and mechanical characterization of structural wood used in pakistan

Six species of wood (Vachellia nilotica, Eucalyptus camaldulensis, Ziziphus mauritiana, Albizia lebbeck, Melia azedarach, Dalbergia sissoo) were tested in compression and tension parallel to the grain. The specimens were collected from different areas of Pakistan. The compressive strengths, tension parallel to grain and hardness of the wood were determined by testing rectangular shape wooden specimens (ASTM D143 2014, Janka 1906). It was observed that compressive and tensile strength of Vachllia nilotica parallel to the grain is higher than other species whereas, Eucalyptus camaldulensis hardness behaviour along radial and tangential surface is higher among the wooden samples tested.

Research on wood defects classification based on deep learning

Whereas the traditional manual detection method of wood defects is problematic due time-consuming, low efficiency and low accuracy, an derived model based on ResNet-v2 was constructed. The new derived model can accurately point out the types of defects such as wormhole, live joint and dead joint on the surface of plate, improve the accuracy of classification, and greatly reduce the labor force. Compared with the traditional convolutional neural network, ResNet-v2 derived model has better recognition effect and stronger generalization ability. The experimental results show that the classification accuracy of ResNet-v2 derived network model based on different number of layers is more than 80%, and the classification accuracy of ResNet-v2 derived model can reach 97.27%.

Reduction of effect of growth stress presence using endless screw during kiln drying and steaming and heating treatment in log before sawing

The relaxation of growth stress in trees growing in fast-growth conditions, as plantation in tropical areas, affects lumber quality during of sawing or drying process. It was evaluated two pretreatments (heating and steaming application) before sawing process and endless screw use to maintain the boards pressed during drying of Dipteryx panamensis and Hieronyma alchorneoides wood with objective to reduce the effects of relaxation of growth stress. The results showed endless screw is used to maintain the boards pressed, the moisture content (MC) or drying rate did not vary. The use of endless screws with daily adjustment during drying produced a reduction of cup, check and split defects in lumber and this treatment is ccompanied with a pre-treatment before sawing (heating or steaming treatment) decreased the incidence of drying defects. Then the use of both treatments is an opportunity to reduce the effects of relaxation of growth stress on the quality of the wood of D. panamensis and H. alchorneoides from fast-growth plantation conditions.

Short notes: The low-velocity impact response of bio-composites

In this paper, an experimental investigation on the low-velocity impact response of wood-based bio-composites is presented. This study is to map the suitability of plant-based materials instead of petroleum-based plastic as a constituent raw material in composites. Wood-based composites panels were made from southern yellow pine (SYP), corn starch (CS), and methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) using a Diefenbacher hot press. The impact performance of the specimens was evaluated in terms of energy absorption capacity. Five types of bio-composites were prepared with varying compositions with SYP: 4% MDI; 2% CS and 2% MDI; 2% CS and 4% MDI; 4% CS and 4% MDI. These samples were prepared at two different manufacturing pressures. The bio-composite produced with higher manufacturing pressure had the highest absorbed energy among five different types of bio-composites, this shows that material behavior at impact loading is strongly dependent on the manufacturing pressure during fabrication.