Water is an essential requirement for fungal degradation, but the exact role of water is not fully understood (Brischke & Alfredsen 2020). Fungal hyphae need capillary water (Rayner & Boddy 1988), but sufficient space for water within cell walls also appear to be a requirement (Thybring 2013, Zelinka et al. 2015). It is thus likely that fungal degradation of wood depends not only on the absolute value of the moisture content, but also on the location of the water within the wood structure. In this study, we explored the possibility to generate several moisture states and distributions of water within the wood structure by targeted modification in combination with precise control of the relative humidity/water potential.
Keywords: wood modification, moisture content, moisture sorption
Authors
Maria Fredriksson
Lund University, Sweden
Ramunas Digaitis
Danish Technological Institute, Denmark
Jonas Engqvist
Lund University, Sweden
Emil E Thybring
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Login to download the PDF
