Abstract

IT is important in the field of forest products science to know the sorption mechanism of water in wood. Adsorption of water onto hygroscopic natural polymers, such as wood and cellulose, is thought to depend entirely on the hydroxyl groups on the surface1. The mechanism of water adsorption in wood can therefore be studied by evaluating the quantity and the state of the adsorption sites, hydroxyl groups. Until now, in order to measure the number of adsorption sites of water in wood, it has been usual to draw a sorption isotherm from which the adsorbed area can be calculated assuming monomolecular layer adsorption according to the BET theory2. Little is known of the sorption mechanism on the molecular level, however. We report here the use of a hydrogen–deuterium exchange method to determine the adsorption sites of water in wood. Hydrogen–deuterium exchange is a well established method which has been widely used to determine hydroxyl group accessibility3,8,9.

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