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Water vapor sorption behavior of bamboo pertaining to its hierarchical structure

Authors :
Qi Chen
Changhua Fang
Ge Wang
Xinxin Ma
Junji Luo
Meiling Chen
Chunping Dai
Benhua Fei
Source :
Scientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-10 (2021)
Publication Year :
2021
Publisher :
Nature Portfolio, 2021.

Abstract

Abstract Bamboo is an anisotropic, hierarchical, and hygroscopic material. Moisture transport in bamboo is one of the most fundamental properties affecting almost all other physical and mechanical properties of the material. This study investigated the water vapor sorption behaviors of bamboo at various structural levels: cell walls, cells (with pits) and bamboo blocks. The specimens with two sorption directions, longitudinal (L) and transverse (T), were measured by saturated salt solution method and dynamic vapor sorption. The parallel exponential kinetics model was used to analyze the sorption kinetics. The results showed that at the cell wall level, the sorption rate and equilibrium moisture content (EMC) of cell wall in the L specimens were larger than those in the T specimens. The differences were probably caused by the looser cell wall layers in the L specimens. At the cellular scale, pits in the cell wall resulted in an enhanced sorption rate and EMC of the T specimens compared with the L specimens where the pits in the parenchyma cells were only distributed in the lateral walls but not in end walls. At the macro scale, the sorption rate and moisture content of bamboo blocks were largely controlled by the vessel cells. As a hierarchically-structured plant, bamboo performs the biological function of moisture transport at all these scales. This work helps improve the understanding of water transport behavior in bamboo, which may lead to better bamboo drying and impregnation processes.

Subjects

Subjects :
Medicine
Science

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
20452322
Volume :
11
Issue :
1
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Scientific Reports
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.058e0fadc29945ccb84b9611d631dae8
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-92103-4