Study on Energy Saving of Chinese-fir Wood Carbonization Process Based on Moisture Absorption Characteristics

Chinese fir is one of the most important species in plantation-grown forest in South China and been widely used in many fields. However, the properties of strong moisture absorption and weak dimensional stability limit its development. The introduction of thermal treatment and carbonization has repaired this defect in certain extent but at the cost of high energy-consumption. In this paper, whole factor analysis method was used to find a novel and optimized process parameter, the results show as follows: 1) these 3 factors that carbonization temperature, carbonization time and environment humidity have significant influence on the moisture content and mechanical properties, especially on energy consumption. 2) Equilibrium moisture contents all tend to decrease with the increase of carbonization temperature, carbonization time and environment humidity, but much more energy are consumed only obtained light decrease. 3) The best process parameter is 160degC-180degC carbonization temperature, 2 hours carbonization and 22.45% environment humidity, under this condition, no only dimensional stability is improved, but also production cost is saved and energy consumption is decreased by nearly 50%.