The First-Order decay method for carbon stocks is derived from first principles, and applications in the context of national greenhouse gas inventories are discussed. For methane emissions from landfills a method is developed that in principle is more accurate than the method currently recommended by the IPCC, and systematic errors are estimated numerically. The First-Order decay method is furt...

Brown-rot fungi, e.g. the dryrot fungus (Serpula lacrymans), are the most harmful microorganisms in wood in service in Finland and in temperate regions. Brownrot fungi cause wood decay primarly by attacking the carbohydrates of the cell walls, leaving lignin essentially undigested. At the initial stage of the decay, the brown-rot fungi seem to operate by a mechanism which cause extensive change...

Wood decomposition is a sophisticated process where various biocatalysts act simultaneously and synergistically on biopolymers to efficiently break down plant cell walls. In nature, this depends the activities of wood-inhabiting fungal communities that co-exist interact during wood decay. Wood-decaying species have traditionally been classified as white-rot brown-rot fungi, which differ in thei...

Wood–polymer composites (WPCs) were prepared from poplar wood (P. ussuriensis Komarov) in a two-step procedure. Maleic anhydride (MAN) was first dissolved in acetone and impregnated into wood; this was followed by a heat process; and then, glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) and styrene (St) were further impregnated into the MAN-treated wood, followed by a second thermal treatment. Finally, the novel W...

The majority of terrestrial biomass is wood, but the elemental composition of its potential consumers, xylophages, differs hugely from that of wood. This causes a severe nutritional imbalance. We studied the stoichiometric relationships of 11 elements (C, N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, Zn, Mn, Cu, Na) in three species of pine-xylem-feeding insects, Stictoleptura rubra, Arhopalus rusticus (Coleoptera, Cer...

Boron compounds are used as wood preservatives as they are both fungicide and insecticide, relatively inexpensive and environmentally acceptable. Nevertheless, in the field of wood protection, borates are only used for indoor non-exposed applications or in association with other biocides, due to their main disadvantage of being readily leachable from treated wood. To overcome this problem, bori...

The objective of this study was to investigate the influence of the acetylation treated kenaf fiber, Phenol-formaldehyde resin content level, and three fungi species on the dimensional stability and decay resistance of high density non-wood composition boards. A standard ASTM method was used to evaluate weight loss and thickness change. The linear shrinkage and expansion of each species were al...

The Tier 1 method disaggregates the production data and import/export data into categories of wood fuels, slash, and short and longer-term roundwood production and products. Two categories of decay are distinguished. Emissions from the short-lived product pool are released in the first year and a single decay rate is applied to all longer-lived products. For this purpose the Guidelines could re...

Decayed-wood samples were collected from a naturally-infected bridge made of Quercus robur. Fruiting bodies of the white-rot basidiomycetes Hymenochaete rubiginosa and Stereum hirsutum were sampled. The white-rot fungus Fuscoporia ferrea and the secondary saprobiont Mycena galericulata were identified from the rotten wood by means of rDNA-ITS sequencing. The topochemistry of lignin degradation ...

Treatment of wood with various physical and chemical factors can change the number parameters, which also lead to changes in resistance wood-destroying fungi. This study evaluates effects hydrothermal treatments (additives Fe2O3 or FeCl3 without commercial tannins, additives fresh wood) on decay mould fungi modified Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), Norway spruce (Picea abies), Douglas fir (Pseudo...