Water sorption hysteresis in wood: III physical modeling by molecular simulation

Abstract

Abstract Molecular simulation has been successfully applied to sorption and hysteresis studies of various nanoporous materials, revealing underlying mechanisms that neither theoretical nor experimental approaches can achieve. In this work, the grand canonical Monte Carlo approach is used in a simplified wood-water system to simulate sorption isotherms and hysteresis at 25°C and 40°C. Wood is represented by a cell wall model composed of a solid substance and evenly distributed independent cylindrical nanopores with diameters in the range of 0.6–2.2 nm. Polysaccharides and lignin pore-wall compositions are considered. Hydroxyl groups are modeled as negative energy pits attached to walls and water is represented by the extended simple point charge model. Capillary condensation in the wide hygroscopic range and metastable states are well demonstrated in the simulations, thus supporting the independent domain model discussed in the first paper of this series. The size of simulated hysteresis loops increases with pore size, less hydrophilic lignin composition and reduced temperature. The trends shown by the model are consistent with experimental findings. The larger hysteresis can be explained by more metastable states due to weaker wall-water interaction or smaller thermal fluctuation.