Theses and Dissertations

Author

Nasim Maafi

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Nikolic, Dragica Jeremic

Committee Member

Ingram Jr., Leonard L.

Committee Member

Barnes, H. Michael

Committee Member

Zhang, Jilei

Date of Degree

8-11-2017

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Sustainable Bioproducts

Degree Name

Master of Science

College

College of Forest Resources

Department

Department of Sustainable Bioproducts

Abstract

Although incipient fungal decay of wood may be difficult to detect early, it causes a significant decrease in wood strength. Developing a reliable method of decay identifica-tion to overcome wood replacement costs by non-destructive methods is necessary. This study investigates a possibility of identifying fungal volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as means of fungal detection using solid phase micro-extraction (SPME) coupled with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Volatile emissions from two brown rot (Gloeophyllum trabeum and Postia pla-centa) and two white rot (Trametes versicolor and Irpex lacteus) fungi on pine and aspen and their profiles related to wood mechanical strength and mass loss were investigated over 12 weeks. Principal component analysis of VOCs spectra differentiated volatiles from decayed and sound wood. Volatiles from two fungal species revealed distinct pat-terns of early and late degradation stages. SPME combined with GC-MS showed promissing results for non-destructive identification of incipient decay in wood struc-tures.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/19854

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