Rapid quality assessment of wood-based materials through spectroscopy

ended

The European concern about climate change and greenhouse gas emissions has led to the promotion of clean energies. Considering the size of the waste wood market, the efficient utilization and the most appropriate exploitation of these materials could be a driver for climate change mitigation. In fact, it is well known that the reuse and recycle of waste materials is to be preferred to landfill. The wood materials could potentially be exploited in the panel industry to produce composites - such as panels - or they could be used for energy purposes instead of disposing them off. This project will develop a rapid tool based on spectroscopic techniques for the discrimination among the different types of wood-based materials – defining accordingly the most suitable target of use – and for assessing the chemical-physical characteristics (e.g. ash content, moisture content and calorific value) of the wood materials prior to be intended for energy purposes. The project takes an interdisciplinary approach involving a combination of analytical chemistry, chemometrics, spectroscopic techniques and wood science and it combines my research experience on wood sector with the host expertise in spectroscopic and chemometric techniques. The project will lead to important breakthroughs in the wood and wood-energy sectors since the expected results will support and valorize the wood-based materials in the optic of green economy and sustainable development. The project will enhance collaboration among scientific and non-scientific world promoting the application of the research. In addition, it will open up new collaborations thanks to the possibility to apply multivariate data analysis in different sectors beyond that of wood (i.e. food or waste). This project will be carried at Chemometrics and Analytical Technology Section of University of Copenhagen and at Biomass Lab of Università Politecnica delle Marche during a secondment.