Time-dependent ammonia emissions from fumed oak wood determined by micro-chamber/thermal extractor (μCTE) and FTIR-ATR spectroscopy

Abstract

Abstract The ongoing preference for dark colours in parquet and furniture is a driving force for colour modification of bright wood species. The treatment of oak wood with gaseous ammonia (fuming) leads to dark colours, but residual ammonia in the wood may lead to bonding failures with resins, odour nuisance and thus customer complaints. The focus of the present paper is the determination and emission of remaining ammonia in fumed oak. A fast and convenient approach based on Fourier transform infrared-attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR) spectroscopy was developed to replace the currently applied time-consuming and complex determination procedures. The integrated area of the infrared (IR) region between 1575 and 1535 cm−1 shows a relationship with the coefficient of determination (R2=0.76) to the residual ammonia content determined by the micro-chamber/thermal extractor (μCTE) method. The prediction accuracy was further improved by partial least square regression calculations. Promising models with high R2 (0.85), low root mean square error of cross-validation (RMSE-CV=1.08%) with five principal components were established and already integrated successfully into the production as input control. FTIR-ATR spectroscopy proved to be a simple and fast predictive method to estimate residual ammonia in fumed oak.