Thermal modification kinetics and chemistry of poplar wood in dry and saturated steam media

This research work presents a modelling strategy to analyse thermal conversion rates of two thermal wood modification processes based on time-temperature superposition method. It gathers in a single study different original and bibliographic experimental works analysing the dry mass variation that occurs during thermal and hydro-thermal wood modification processes. The mass loss kinetic was successfully modelled using a modified Arrhenius approach. The time-temperature superposition method allowed to define for each wood modification process a master curve and its time shift depending on the treatment temperature. The analysis of ventilated oven and saturated steam treatments pointed out the existence of a continuous single kinetic for the ventilated oven which became more complex for saturated steam since a second kinetic stage appeared. This kinetic difference was sustained by infrared spectra chemical analysis which showed that hemicelluloses degraded much faster in presence of steam while lignin degradation occurred in both conditions.