The paper presents the results of an experimental study performed with black pine (Pinus nigra L.) and spruce (Picea abies L.) wood, originating from mature trees and thinnings cut from the same parcel from the Stroeşti-Argeş region in Romania. After air drying and conditioning, the defect-free test boards were cut into standard 20x20x60mm samples for the compression test. The compression strength was measured and the rupture mode in compression was analyzed.Therefore, the samples were first dried to oven-dry state, then heat-treated at high temperatures (180 and 200ºC) for 1, 2, 3 and 4 hours. Sets of 10 samples from each wood species, wood assortment and treating regime were tested. The obtained results were comparatively analyzed for the two species (pine vs. spruce) and for the two wood assortments (mature wood vs, thin wood). Then they were also expressed relatively to the mass loss, considered to be the main indiactor of the degradation suffered by wood during the heat treatment. A graph was drawn for each species and assortment in order to establish the optimum treating regime, considering the correlated influence of the heat treatment conditions upon all three analyzed properties (mass loss, dimensional stability and compression strength). The results of the present research are to be valorized at the manufacturing of solid wood panels made from heat-treated lamellas.

To date, there was no information available on the diversity and molecular characterization of fungi associated with oil palm decay. This study appeared as a response to that need for essential information on the overall, global biodiversity of fungi associated with oil palm decay. In this study, 5 isolates from 30 fresh samples from the TanahGambus estates (infested fresh tissues and fruiting bodies) seemed to be Ganoderma boninense. In general, the strains isolated belonged to the class of the Ascomycetes and of the Mucorales. Some of these strains had a very fast growth rate (48h), making them highly invasive, such as the genera Trichoderma or Fusarium. The PDA-Chloramphenicol medium seemed to be the most appropriate. Adaptation of the protocol developed in this study enabled us to extract DNA from all our samples using just 40 mg of mycelium of Ganoderma fruiting bodies and of fresh oil palm tissues. To date, the sequencing result for 250 samples gives a single species name and very high BLAST performance criteria (evalue, % coverage) for the best 10 results. After BLAST, we obtained 17% the genus Ganoderma, 41% of Ascomycetes, yeasts and other Basidiomycetes, 17% miscellaneous (plants etc.) and 25% of unusable sequences. An initial analysis of the interspecific phylogenetic relations of Ganoderma, based on a comparison of rDNA sequences, 5.8S and ITS 2, revealed clearly distinct clades where the species tended to group according to the nature of the sample and the geographical origin, particularly the species from Benin and Indonesia, and the freeze-dried samples from Indonesia.

Renewable energy has become more important globally especially with the current fuel and economic crisis. Date palm biomasses are highly potential materials for energy resources. The fact that they are renewable and abundantly available are amongst the attractive reasons of employing them as the major source for renewable energy. The purpose of this research was to investigate the thermal behavior of date palm biomass in order to evaluate their usefulness for energy production. In microparticular scale, the thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) is one of the techniques used to determine the thermal properties of five different date palm residues that were studied: (date palm rachis (DPR), date palm trunk (DPT), leaf base (Petiole) (LB), fruitstalk prunings (FP) and liff (LP)). The TGA technique consists to record the lost weight during the increase in temperature from 20°C until 600°C with a 10°C/min heating rate. The thermograms presented a departure phase of free water (from room temperature to 110°C) before the degradation process of the lignocellulosic constituents. The lignin and hemicellulose play an important role on the degradation of lignocellulosic materials at the temperature under 250°C. The degradation of cellulose begins at 250°C and overlaps to that of lignin until 450°C.

In wood laminated products manufacturing the phenol-based adhesives are especially used. Recently other adhesives such as polyurethanes were promoted on the market for structural applications with remarkable properties. Structural adhesives have to fulfil the requirements according to their uses, under wet or dry conditions as adhesive type I and type II respectively. Criteria for evaluating structural adhesives, includes delamination resistance, shear strength of bond and percent of wood failure. This study has the objective to evaluate the bonding performance of furan based resin and its suitability for structural purposes. There are some investigations about the possibility of incorporating the furan resin into wood adhesive formulations but their industrial exploitation is still modest. Three experimental adhesive compositions based on furan and ureaformaldehyde resins, were used to cold-glue beech and spruce lamellas to form a structural timber like glued laminated timber. Adhesive formulations included mixed furan resin with furfuryl alcohol (FC2) and two modified furan resins with urea-formaldehyde resin (UR/FC2 and UR/FC3 at 50% UR). Bond shear strength by longitudinal tensile and resistance to delamination were performed according to SR EN 302:2004. The best performance was obtained with adhesive FC2 which showed shear strength above the values indicated for structural adhesives in EN 301:2004. FC2 adhesive performed significantly better in delamination tests too, both in dry and wet conditions, compared to the other two adhesives, showing promise for its use in load-bearing timber structures.

The article presents the authors’ two original graphical interfaces made in Borland Delphi and designed to measure and record (with the DS18B20 sensor) a wide range of negative and positive temperatures. The first interface allows the reading of a sensor’s unique code and then the measurement and recording of temperature. The second interface can work with a variable number of such sensors once their unique code has been entered. The interfaces have been conceived for the study of the slow variations of air temperature inside chambers or wood, in timber freezing, heating or drying processes. To achieve the purpose we have also experimented on other variants of temperature sensors, but finally we have adopted the variant that uses the DS18B20 digital output sensor manufactured by Dallas Company. This sensor has the following advantages: - a small size (it can be easily inserted into a 4 mm diameter hole made in the wood piece); - it measures temperatures between -55°C and +125°C; - it can relatively easily connect to the RS232 serial port of a computer; - with only two wires one can ensure data insertion and transmission from a number of 4 ÷ 10 sensors of this type.