A polyethylene/wood-fiber composite loaded with nano-ZnO was prepared by a facile hot-press method and was used for the photocatalytic degradation of organic compounds as well as for microwave absorption. ZnO nanoparticles with an average size of 29 nm and polyethylene (PE) powders were dispersed on the wood fibers' surface through a viscous cationic polyacrylamide (CPAM) solution. The reflecti...

In this paper, measurement of wood grains is discussed. A number of image processing techniques are first applied to images of all four long surfaces of sawn lumber. This gives us the rates and directions of the visible grains, which enables us to estimate the actual thickness and 3D directions of wood fibers. These are very important indicators about the strength of the subject. In these exper...

Effects of accelerated and natural weathering on the molecular weight distribution (MWD) and crystallinity of polypropylene (PP) in wood plastic composites (WPC) were investigated. The composites were produced from pine fibers (60%) and PP (40%). Prolonged weathering caused an increase in wood degradation and erosion thereby leaving cracks and ‘‘pits’’ on the surface. Pyrolysis gas chromatograp...

Bamboo is a unidirectional fiber-reinforced material with excellent flexibility and flexural toughness arising from its unique cellular hierarchical structure, which creates an urgent demand in the bamboo industry to understand potential mechanisms of those two performances. In this study, proposed original method was used quantitatively evaluate gradient distribution aggregate structure fibers...

Wood cells, unlike most other cells in plants, grow by a unique combination of intrusive and symplastic growth. Fibers grow in diameter by diffuse symplastic growth, but they elongate solely by intrusive apical growth penetrating the pectin-rich middle lamella that cements neighboring cells together. In contrast, vessel elements grow in diameter by a combination of intrusive and symplastic grow...

The amount of wood residue is used as a measurement of the extent of wood liquefaction. Characterization of the residue from wood liquefaction provides a new approach to understand some fundamental aspects of the liquefaction reaction. Residues were characterized by wet chemical analyses, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (...

Betula platyphylla Suk (birch) is a fast-growing woody species that is important in pulp industries and the biofuels. However, as an important pulp species, few studies had been performed on its wood formation. In the present study, we investigated the molecular responses of birch xylem to artificial bending and gravitational stimuli. After trunks of birch trees were subjected to bending for 8 ...

A study of converting chemically modified wood into thermoplastic materials was undertaken to develop a new technology platform for the effective utilization of wood-based lignocellulosic materials. Highly substituted benzoylated spruce thermomechanical pulp (TMP) and lauroylated spruce TMP were used as components for thermoplastic composites of poly(styrene) and poly(propylene). Scanning elect...

Wood anatomy of 14 species of Clematis and one species each of Delphinium, Helleborus, Thalictrum, and Xanthorhiza (Ranunculaceae) is compared to that of Glaucidium palma tum (Glaucidiaceae) and Hydrastis canadensis (Ranunculaceae, or Hydrastidaceae of some authors). Clematis wood has features typical of wood of vines and lianas: wide (earlywood) vessels, abundant axial parenchyma (earlywood, s...

Indole acetic acid (auxin) is a key regulator of wood formation, and an observed overlap between auxin concentration gradient and developing secondary xylem cells has led to the hypothesis that auxin regulates wood formation by acting as a morphogen. We dissected the role of auxin in wood formation by identifying the auxin-responsive transcriptome in wood-forming tissues and investigating alter...