Studying how cambial age and axial height affects wood anatomical traits may improve our understanding of xylem hydraulics, heartwood formation and axial growth. Radial strips were collected from six different heights (0–11.3 m) along the main trunk of three Manchurian catalpa (Catalpa bungei) trees, yielding 88 samples. In total, thirteen wood anatomical vessel and fiber traits were observed usinglight microscopy (LM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and linear models were used to analyse the combined effect of axial height, cambial age and their interaction. Vessel diameter differed by about one order of magnitude between early- and latewood, and increased significantly with both cambial age and axial height in latewood, while it was positively affected by cambial age and independent of height in earlywood. Vertical position further had a positive effect on earlywood vessel density, and negative effects on fibre wall thickness, wall thickness to diameter ratio and length. Cambial age had positive effects on the pit membrane diameter and vessel element length, while the annual diameter growth decreased with both cambial age and axial position. In contrast, early- and latewood fiber diameter were unaffected by both cambial age and axial height. We further observed an increasing amount of tyloses from sapwood to heartwood, accompanied by an increase of warty layers and amorphous deposits on cell walls, bordered pit membranes and pit apertures. This study highlights the significant effects of cambial age and vertical position on xylem anatomical traits, and confirms earlier work that cautions to take into account xylem spatial position when interpreting wood anatomical structures, and thus, xylem hydraulic functioning.

This research focused on the cell wall structure and its mechanical properties of down-regulated Coumaroyl shikimate 3-hydroxylase (C3H) transgenic poplar and down-regulated hydroxycinnamoyl CoA: shikimate hydroxycinnamoyl transferase (HCT) transgenic poplar (Populus alba × P. glandulosa cv ‘84 k’). The wood samples with respect to microstructure, the longitudinal elastic modulus (MOE) and hardness of wood fiber secondary cell wall were investigated. The results show that the lignin contents in the two transgenic poplar woods were lower than non-modified wood. The C3H transgenic poplar and HCT transgenic poplar have more than 18.5% and 16.1% cellulose crystalline regions than non-modified poplar respectively. The diameter of the fiber cell and the vessel element of transgenic poplars are smaller. Double radial vessel cell wall thicknesses of both transgenic poplars were smaller than non-modified poplar. Cell wall ratios for the transgenic poplar were higher than non-modified poplar and cell wall density was significantly lower in both C3H and HCT transgenic poplar. The cell wall MOEs of C3H and HCT transgenic poplar was 5.8% and 7.0% higher than non-modified poplar. HCT can be more effective than C3H to modify the trees by considerably increasing mechanical properties of the cell wall.

Knowledge of the dynamic changes in the water absorption process of heat-treated wood is important for providing a scientific basis for the reasonable application of heat-treated wood, especially for outdoor applications. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques provide detailed information about the moisture components and moisture transport processes in wood, which are not available with other methods. In this work, water absorption of untreated and heat treated Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata [Lamb.] Hook.) heartwood was investigated using various NMR methods. The heat treatment temperatures were varied between 160 °C and 220 °C. According to the spin-spin relaxation time (T₂), there were two components of water in the samples heat-treated at 160 °C and 180 °C as well as the untreated sample, while three components of water were found in the samples heat-treated at 200 °C and 220 °C, and the mass of each component was calculated by the integral peak areas of the T₂ curve. The amount of bound water and free water in heat-treated samples were less compared to the untreated ones, and the water absorption decreased correspondingly, due to the increasing heat-treated temperature. The results obtained by one dimensional frequency coding indicated that the heat treatment made wood difficult to be accessed by moisture. Besides, NMR images revealed that the free water absorption in latewood was faster than in earlywood, but earlywood could absorb more water than latewood.

Hierarchical porous carbon materials made from cork were fabricated using a facile and green method combined with air activation, without any templates and chemical agents. The influence of air activation on the texture and other surface characteristics of the carbon materials were evaluated by various characterization techniques. Results indicate that air oxidation can effectively improve the surface area and the hierarchical porous structure of carbon materials, as well as increase the number of oxygen-containing functional groups on the carbon surface. The specific surface area and the pore volume of the carbon material activated by air at 450 °C (C800-M450) can reach 580 m²/g and 0.379 cm³/g, respectively. These values are considerably higher than those for the non-activated material (C800, 376 m²/g, 0.201 cm³/g). The contents of the functional groups (C–O, C=O and O–H) increased with rising activation temperature. After air activation, the adsorption capacity of the carbon materials for methylene blue (MB) and methyl orange (MO) was increased from 7.7 and 6.4 mg/g for C800 to 312.5 and 97.1 mg/g for C800-M450, respectively. The excellent dye removal of the materials suggests that the porous carbon obtained from biomass can be potentially used for wastewater treatment.

As a green and low-carbon natural polymer material, wood has always been popular in engineering applications owing to its excellent physical and mechanical properties. In this study, compression tests in conjunction with in situ test methods (DIC method) were used to investigate the compression mechanism of wood samples in the longitudinal, radial, and tangential directions. The macroscopic failure modes, energy dissipation results, and variations in the strain field were analyzed. The results showed that the load–displacement curve in each grain orientation included three stages: an elasticity stage, yield stage, and strengthening stage. Both the compressive strength and elastic modulus in the longitudinal direction were significantly higher than those in the radial and tangential directions, but there was no significant difference between the radial and tangential directions. Specimens in the longitudinal direction mainly presented fiber buckling, fiber shear slippage, and fiber fracture failure; in radial directions mainly presented compression compaction of the fiber cells; and in the tangential directions presented buckling and shear failure of the laminar layers. The energy absorption in the longitudinal direction was better than in the other directions. The strain changed significantly in the loading direction in the elastic stage while the shear strain changed remarkably in the yield stage in each grain orientation. In this paper, the compression mechanical properties of larch wood in different grain orientations were studied to provide a reference for its safe application in engineering.