The quality of a board or a sheet of veneer determines its potential uses and the price for the sawmills. Automatic detection of the defects in the wood surface and grading of the products is one of the key interest areas in the mechanical wood industry. In this paper two methods for knot recognition are reviewed and compared. The rst method is based on centiles of color histograms and some kno...

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This study established a novel process using sulfite pretreatment to overcome recalcitrance of lignocellulose (SPORL) for robust and efficient bioconversion of softwoods. The process consists of sulfite treatment of wood chips under acidic conditions followed by mechanical size reduction using disk refining. The results indicated that after the SPORL pretreatment of spruce chips with 8-10% bisu...

Contract 8CA74759 Opinions or conclusions expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Editorial comments may be addressed to the FRRAP staff chief or to the author. Executive Summary Perceptions of wood fiber merchantability are based on existing patterns of utilization. These patterns ar...

BACKGROUND Fast-growing Eucalyptus grandis trees are one of the most efficient producers of wood in South Africa. The most serious problem affecting the quality and yield of solid wood products is the occurrence of end splitting in logs. Selection of E. grandis planting stock that exhibit preferred wood qualities is thus a priority of the South African forestry industry. We used microarray-base...

The white-rot fungus Physisporinus vitreus preferentially degrades the pit membranes of bordered pits in tracheids and subsequently enhances wood permeability. Thus, P. vitreus can be used to improve the uptake of wood preservatives and environmentally-benign wood modification substances. This process can be used to enhance the use and sustainability of native conifer wood species by the wood i...

The concept of traceability is defined according to the standard ISO 8402 like “the ability for the retrieval of the history and use or location of an article or an activity through a registered identification”. Their implementation in the wood industry is delayed because of the limits of classical automatic identification systems in regard to the nature of wood and the features of the manufact...

Ultrasonic energy was applied to assist the wood vacuum drying process. At a drying temperature of 60°C, the absolute pressure was either 0.05 MPa or 0.08 MPa; the ultrasonic power and frequency were 100 W and 28 kHz, respectively. The results showed that the effective water diffusivity of the specimens dried by the ultrasonic assisted vacuum drying at 0.05 MPa or 0.08 MPa were higher than that...

In this paper we conduct the analysis of economic and ecological aspects of alternative energy carriers based on biomass sources. These sources encompass short rotation copies, forest wood residue, wood industry residues, waste wood as well as energy crops. In 2010 the energy output from all these biomass-based alternative energy carriers was about 4000 PJ in the EU-15. We show which energy out...

Wood-inhabiting Basidiomycetes have been screened for various applications in the pulp and paper industry and it is evident that different fungi need to be used to suit the specific requirements of each application. This study assessed the suitability of 278 strains of South African wood-decay fungi for the pre-treatment of softwood chips for kraft pulping. The influence of these fungi on kappa...