WoodSpec · Rapid quality assessment of wood-based materials through spectroscopy

Rapid quality assessment of wood-based materials through spectroscopy

The wood sector has a high potential for contributing to mitigate climate change. One way is through more efficient utilization of waste wood. The big challenge is to make sure to treat them as a secondary resource instead of a waste to dispose of. It is important to consider that the recycling potential of waste wood is still low because of the presence of contaminants in wood products, which limits considerably its recycling or reuse. The correct identification of the waste wood category will result in a proper cascading use of the material with benefits in term of reduced energy (use of renewable resources instead of fossil fuels) and economic losses (less material sent to the disposal). For waste wood entering the energy market it can translate in reduced emissions since non-compliant or low-quality material could be removed before entering the stream. The most appropriate application of the wood-based materials will surely lead to environmental and economic advantages for society. Primarily, the need to ensure that waste wood is correctly separated and consequently properly managed is related to limit risks both for human health and the environment. Secondly, the most appropriate sorting of waste wood avoids losses in terms of material, energy and economic resources. The development of sorting technologies will help in moving in this direction and will increase the added value of the waste wood. The authorities and traders can use the project results for fast and inexpensive quality classification of wood-based materials. In particular, concerning the biofuels sector, the developed tool will guarantee the traceability and the quality of the product entering the market, which will reduce the emissions caused by the combustion of non-compliant or low-quality materials as well as reduction of the overall costs of quality control. Similarly, wood industries and wood recovery sites can use the results to develop a new approach to wood management which promotes the sustainable exploitation of the material and its best-suited recycling or reuse. The development of a rapid and economic tool based on spectroscopy will lead to an improvement of the quality assurance and simplify monitoring of the wood products with benefits for all stakeholders. As a consequence, the main objective of this project is to apply spectroscopy, a rapid and economic technique, to classify different wood-based materials and assess the chemical-physical characteristics of the wood materials selected as suitable to be used as biofuel in power plants. The overall aim is to increase green energy production and cascade use of wood materials and decrease landfill and greenhouse gas emissions. I focused on two different specific objectives to reach this aim: 1) Classification models based on spectroscopic data for the rapid and economic discrimination among different categories of wood-based materials (i.e. glued wood, virgin wood, painted wood, etc.). 2) Rapid determination of quality parameters of wood-based materials selected as suitable for energy production (moisture content and calorific value).

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз