Interaction between Thermal Modification Temperature of Spruce Wood and the Cutting and Fracture Parameters

Sustainability in Wood Products: A New Perspective for Handling Natural Diversity

Wood is a renewable resource with excellent qualities and the potential to become a key element of a future bioeconomy. The increasing environmental awareness and drive to achieve sustainability is leading to a resurgence of research on wood materials. Nevertheless, the global climate changes and associated consequences will soon challenge the wood-value chains in several regions (e.g., central Europe). To cope with these challenges, it is necessary to rethink the current practice of wood sourcing and transformation. The goal of this review is to address the intrinsic natural diversity of wood, from its origin to its technological consequences for the present and future manufacturing of wood products. So far, industrial processes have been optimized to repress the variability of wood properties, enabling more efficient processing and production of reliable products. However, the need to preserve biodiversity and the impact of climate change on forests call for new wood processing techniques and green chemistry protocols for wood modification as enabling factors necessary for managing a more diverse wood provision in the future. This article discusses the past developments that have resulted in the current wood value chains and provides a perspective about how natural variability could be turned into an asset for making truly sustainable wood products. After briefly introducing the chemical and structural complexity of wood, the methods conventionally adopted for industrial homogenization and modification of wood are discussed in relation to their evolution toward increased sustainability. Finally, a perspective is given on technological potentials of machine learning techniques and of novel functional wood materials. Here the main message is that through a combination of sustainable forestry, adherence to green chemistry principles and adapted processes based on machine learning, the wood industry could not only overcome current challenges but also thrive in the near future despite the awaiting challenges.

The Dynamics of Mycobiota Development in Various Types of Wood Dust Depending on the Dust Storage Conditions

Solid or processed wood, and wood waste in particular (dust, shavings, etc.) are the source of a number of health hazards for workers in the wood industry. One of the many negative health effects of exposure to fungi is allergic diseases caused by hypersensitivity reactions. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of wood species and the degree of dust fragmentation, resulting from processing conditions and storage conditions on the level of wood dust contamination with microscopic fungi during 1 year of storage. An additional aspect of the research was the assessment of the influence of the antioxidant wood bioactive compounds on the development of A. alternata microscopic fungi. It was found that the conditions in which wood dust is stored significantly affect the development of microscopic fungi, especially fungi of the genus Alternaria. The results indicate that temperature is the determining factor, not the relative humidity of the air. The degree of dust fragmentation resulting from the sanding paper grit also has a significant impact on the development of microscopic fungi. Finer dust is more susceptible to the development of microscopic fungi. The antioxidant activity of the wood from which the dust was formed was found to have a significant impact on the development of microscopic fungi. An inverse relationship was observed, indicating the strong activity of antimicrobial substances. Gaining comprehensive knowledge of how all factors affect each other is a key step in understanding the risk and implementing measures to prevent and protect the work environment.