Wood Modification as a Tool to Understand Moisture in Wood

Abstract

Moisture plays a central role in the performance of wood products because it affects important material properties such as the resistance to decomposition, the mechanical properties, and the dimensions. To improve wood performance, a wide range of wood modification techniques that alter the wood chemistry in various ways have been described in the literature. Typically, these modifications aim to improve resistance to decomposition, dimensional stability, or, to introduce novel functionalities in the wood. However, wood modification techniques can also be an important tool to improve our understanding of the interactions between wood and moisture. In this review, we describe current knowledge gaps in our understanding of moisture in wood and how modification has been and could be used to clarify some of these gaps. This review shows that introducing specific chemical changes, and even controlling the distribution of these, in combination with the variety of experimental methods available for characterization of moisture in wood, could give novel insights into the interaction between moisture and wood. Such insights could further contribute to applications in several related fields of research such as how to enhance the resistance to decomposition, how to improve the performance of moisture-induced wooden actuators, or how to improve the utilization of wood biomass with challenging swelling anisotropy.