Prediction of the color variation of moso bamboo during CO2 laser thermal modification

Thermal modification is widely used for bamboo materials as an efficient modification method. CO2 laser with the advantages of high energy density, short process period, non-pollution, etc. could be applied as a novel thermal treatment for wooden and bamboo materials processing. The laser intensity argumentation of power, motion arguments of feed rate, and sweep width for laser emitter were selected as input arguments for treating the Moso bamboo surface. The lightness variation and total color variation (ΔL* and ΔE*) were collected using a portable colorimeter to describe the bamboo surface color variation after laser irradiation. Response surface methodology was chosen for designing experiments and modeling. The results showed that the increase of laser power had a positive influence on increasing the absolute values of ΔL* and ΔE*, but the feed rate of laser emitter and sweep width increasing had opposite effects on absolute values of ΔL* and ΔE*. The quadratic models of ΔL* and ΔE* created by response surface methodology were competent for describing the relationship between laser processing arguments and color indexes of ΔL* and ΔE*. This approach will be useful for selecting suitable and desirable processing arguments to get the surface color of bamboo productions. © 2020, North Carolina State University.