Infra-Red analysis for the measurement of wood quality

The suitability of IR spectroscopy for the measurement of wood quality was investigated. IR spectroscopy is a suitable method to classify the species of wood chips and to measure their moisture with an adequate precision. The wider scope of the investigations was to evaluate whether an IR system is suitable within an industrial environment. Therefore the measurements are performed directly on wood chips without any sample preparations. The moisture of the chips was varied in a wide range and new and matured chips were measured. With IR measurements Eucalyptus globulus, Pinus pinaster and Pinus caribea can be classified regardless of the chip condition. In wood mixtures the mixing ratio and the moisture of the different wood species can be measured.