Abstract
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) enables an instantaneous determination of the proton density in liquids and is thus convenient for determining the moisture content (MC) of wood. We demonstrated that the MC of a wood sample can be determined instantaneously on the basis of its mass (m) and the amplitude of its NMR free-induction-decay (FID) signal. The measurement is based on the assumption that the only liquid in the wood is water and that the relationship between the amplitude of the FID signal (S) and the mass of the water (mw) in the sample is linear, i.e., S=k mw+k′ (m-mw), and can be precisely calibrated for a given NMR probe and NMR spectrometer setup (in our case k=105 AU g-1 and k/k′ =34). With the FID signal converted into the mass of water, the MC is calculated as: MC=(S-m k′)/(m k-S). After the initial calibration of the FID signal with respect to the content of water, the correctness of the method was verified on samples of different wood species with various MCs. The results confirmed that the proposed method is comparable in terms of accuracy and reliability to the gravimetric method, regardless of the species of wood. As the method is instantaneous, it might become the method of choice in applications where a short measurement time combined with a high accuracy is demanded.
©2009 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin New York
