The Estimation of Acidic Behavior of Wood by Treatment with Aqueous Na2HPO4 Solution

As a new approach, the acidity that wood exhibits under moderate conditions is assayed by stimulated dissociation of weak wood acids in lightly basic secondary phosphate solutions. To assure a sufficient dissociation of hardly soluble weak acids in the solution, the amount of wood suspended in Na(2)HPO(4) solutions should be small but vary depending on the degree of acidity of wood species. However, the difficulties are associated with the titration of very dilute acids limiting the precision of the measurement. If the disintegrated wood is suspended in a secondary phosphate solution, the weak woods acids form the conjugate acid Na(2)HPO(4) from secondary phosphate Na(2)HPO(4) resulting in a pH fall of the solution. The decrease in the pH value in phosphate solution, which depends on the wood acidity, can be evaluated to estimate the acidity arising from wood under moderate conditions.