Our ancestors knew a great deal about wood. They had to in order to do well in life. Wood has played a dominant role in human infrastructure for many generations, and for most of that time woodcraft has depended on…

Microbial enzymes such as xylanases enable new technologies for industrial processes. Xylanases (xylanolytic enzyme) hydrolyze complex polysaccharides like xylan. Research during the past few decades has been dedicated to enhanced production, purification, and characterization of microbial xylanase. But for commercial…

The fungus Mucor indicus is able to produce ethanol from xylose as well as dilute-acid lignocellulosic hydrolyzates. The fungus completely assimilated 10 g/L xylose as the sole carbon and energy source within 32 to 65 h at an aeration rate…

Pulp fibers’ bleaching technology has been developing mainly by applying increasingly intensive delignification in the cooking department and implementation of elemental-chlorine-free chemicals in the bleaching department. The resulting effluents load is still considerable, and the environmental consequences largely depend on…

Wood plastic composites are complex, anisotropic, and heterogeneous materials. A key to increasing the share of the WPC materials in the market is developing stronger, highly engineered WPCs characterized by greater structural performance and increased durability. These are achieved by…

Some scientific contributions have used near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy as a rapid and reliable tool for characterizing engineered wood products. However, to our knowledge, there are no published papers that used this technique in order to evaluate wood-cement panels. The…