HYDROXYL ACCESSIBILITY AS A TRANSFERABLE DESCRIPTOR IN MODIFIED WOOD PROPERTY PREDICTION

Abstract

Chemical, thermal and impregnation-based modification of wood are studied in separate literatures, each with its own process descriptor: weight percentage gain, mass loss, or retention. These record what was done to the timber rather than what changed inside the cell wall, and do not convert between routes. This work argues that the concentration of accessible hydroxyl groups, determined by deuterium exchange in a dynamic vapour sorption apparatus, offers a route-independent chemical descriptor on a single scale. Published evidence is collated to establish where it accounts for hygroscopic behaviour and where it does not, and leave-one-route-out validation is proposed as the test of transferability. The outcome is a minimum reporting set that would make modification data poolable