CEMARE programme benefits

 

Bent Scots pine with compression wood
(courtesy Mats Warensjö, SLU)

Overall benefits

• An increased knowledge as to how fibre properties at the molecular and ultrastructural may be modified in order to improve processing and quality of pulp, paper, solid wood products and other types of wood-based products.
• Compilation and analysis of comparable information on the variation in fibre properties, resulting in improvements of existing products and the development of new types of wood-based products for the consumer market.
• Improved understanding of biosynthesis and variability of cellulose, hemicelluloses, lignin and the whole wood fibre cell wall.
• Increase of knowledge transfer through Short Term Scientific Missions providing an improvement of qualification for young scientists.
• Promotion of knowledge in European countries on new developments in research on reaction wood and wood macromolecules through workshops and conferences.
• Development of interdisciplinary research activities.
• Promotion of interest in wood science among students and specialists for other materials.
• Maintaining Europe’s position at the forefront of knowledge in these fields and thereby retaining the competitiveness of European forest industries.
• Improvement of European co-operation between research groups on wood constituents, structure and properties, and an increase in the exchange of methodologies, ideas, graduate students and researchers between these groups.

Expected economic and technical benefits

• Higher efficiency in the use of timber as raw material resulting from a better understanding of the variation in properties.
• Improved wood and paper processing techniques regarding the treatment of reaction wood, as well as improved forestry techniques, leading to waste reduction and cost reduction within the whole wood chain.
• Optimisation of forest management for growing trees with a higher uniform quality and less occurrence of reaction wood.
• An increase in value of wood products through an improvement of quality (pulp and paper properties, printing properties etc.).
• Finding new fields for the uses of reaction wood materials.
• Higher efficiency of reaction wood detection at the various stages from tree growth to wood processing and paper making.
• Reduction of human risk during log felling (e.g. log splitting) and timber processing (e.g. log movement during sawing) by a better knowledge of reaction wood consequences.