The mechanism of wood thermal modification (wood carbonization)
Thermal modification is currently the most successful and economically significant wood modification method in terms of industrial promotion and application.
Wood is composed of hemifibers, cellulose, lignin, and a small amount of extracts. Hemicellulose has poor heat resistance and first degrades under high temperature, generating free acetic acid, formic acid, and methanol. The released organic acid acts as a catalyst to accelerate the degradation of hemicellulose and the amorphous region of cellulose, resulting in a significant decrease in hygroscopic hydroxyl groups in wood, reducing its hygroscopicity and increasing its dimensional stability. With the degradation of the amorphous region of cellulose, the proportion of crystalline regions increases, which also reduces the moisture absorption of wood and increases its dimensional stability. In addition, during the heat treatment process, the increase in lateral connections in the lignin network also increases dimensional stability.
Due to the increasing awareness of health and environmental protection, using chemical methods to treat wood has become difficult to accept in the market. Therefore, the main method to solve the dimensional stability of wood still relies on carbonization, which has been widely used in Germany and Northern Europe. From the perspective of furniture production, there are several benefits to using wood carbonization technology: firstly, carbonization can be used as an extension of the wood drying process, and the two are very similar in terms of technology and operation; Secondly, the cost of wood carbonization is lower than that of traditional chemical modification; Once again, the production process and final product of wood carbonization are environmentally friendly.
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