Wood-plastic composite (WPC) is a promising and sustainable material, and refers to a combination of wood and plastic along with some binding (adhesive) materials. In comparison to pure wood material, WPCs are in general have advantages of being cost effective, high durability, moisture resistance, and microbial resistance. The properties of WPCs come directly from the concentration of different components in composite; such as wood flour concentration directly affect mechanical and physical properties of WPCs. In this study, wood powder concentration in WPC was determined by Fourier transform near-infrared (FT-NIR) and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The reflectance spectra from WPC in both powdered and tableted form with five different concentrations of wood powder were collected and preprocessed to remove noise caused by several factors. To correlate the collected spectra with wood powder concentration, multivariate calibration method of partial least squares (PLS) was applied. During validation with an independent set of samples, good correlations with reference values were demonstrated for both FT-NIR and FT-IR data sets. In addition, high coefficient of determination (R 2 p ) and lower standard error of prediction (SEP) was yielded for tableted WPC than powdered WPC. The combination of FT-NIR and FT-IR spectral region was also studied. The results presented here showed that the use of both zones improved the determination accuracy for powdered WPC; however, no improvement in prediction result was achieved for tableted WPCs. The results obtained suggest that these spectroscopic techniques are a useful tool for fast and nondestructive determination of wood concentration in WPCs and have potential to replace conventional methods.

No abstract

The production of biogas was promoted via direct interspecies electron transfer (DIET) by employing electro-conductive carbon-nanotube hollow-fiber media (CHM) in anaerobic digestion. Experimental results showed a positive effect of CHM presence on CH4 productivity with 34% higher CH4 production rate than that of in the presence of non-electroconductive polymeric hollow fiber media. An increased CH4 production rate was due to the shift in the microbiome with more abundant Pelobacter (10.0%), Geobacter (6.9%), and Methanosaeta (15.7%), which play key roles in promoting CH4 production via syntrophic metabolism associated with DIET. Microscopic morphology analysis, using confocal laser scanning microscopy and scanning electron microscopy, exhibited that several living cells were attached with electro-conductive pili on the CHM surface, thereby facilitated electron transport between microbial cells.

No abstract

This study is performed that furniture and interior materials of MDF's (Medium Density Fiberboard) biodegradation properties, and the goal of this study is investigation of possibility of waste-MDF's composting after landfilling. To investigate biodegradation, this study was performed according to KS M ISO 14855-1, and there were two different soil conditions including a compost condition and an activated vermiculite condition as artificial soil. This experiment was tested for 40 days. The measurement of carbon-dioxide generation was processed every 24 hour in 1-2 week, and every 48 hour after 3 week. In the same days, MDF showed 24.4% of biodegradation in compost condition, and 6.2% in activated vermiculite. Also, the reference material of TLC (thin-layer chromatography) grade cellulose showed 26.4%, 11.4% in compost and activated vermiculite respectively. The dilution plate method was performed for biological analysis in the study. This experiment was used for investigation of inoculum's (Bacillus licheniformis) activity. As the result of bioassay, compost has more other germs include inoculum than activated vermiculite in the first week. Especially in the 2nd week, the reference material under the compost condition showed the most germ's activity, and also the biodegradation was the highest. Consequentially, compost condition was able to reduce a performing period of biodegradation testing than activated vermiculite. However, activated vermiculite could be stabilizing errors between repetition.