Experimental determination of the diffusion of monovalent cation into wood under isothermal conditions

Conference contribution, 2012

An efficient impregnation is utmost important when processing of wood involves chemical reactions with an added reactants, to ensure a uniform chemical distribution within the wood chips prior to the main operation. New experimental methodology is developed in order to measure the concentration profile as a function of wood chip dimensions, impregnation time, temperature, and wood structure. This approach is more appropriate than traditional methods based on electrochemical potential measurements or flux measurements to study diffusion of chemicals into wood. Moreover this methodology can be used on samples of wide range of shapes and dimensions and the concentration at any position in the impregnated wood chip can be measured. In order to validate the potential of the proposed methodology, we investigated the impregnation of Lithium Chloride in Norway spruce wood chips. The results from this study show that the method gives reasonable results and that it is easy to detect any defects in the wood chip. However, before we use the data in modeling, we need some additional data obtained after longer impregnation times as well as at higher temperatures.