Laboratory of Wood Technology (UGent-Woodlab)
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Mission statement
This research group is part of the department of Environment, situated at the Faculty of Bioscience Engineering at Ghent University, Belgium. UGent-Woodlab is also part of the research platforms Natural Capital and Green Chemistry, and the UGent IOF consortia HyCT, Composites, DuraBUILDmaterials and End-Of-Waste.
The research group UGent-Woodlab is headed by Prof. Joris Van Acker, Prof. Jan Van den Bulcke and Prof. Wannes Hubau, consists of >15 postdocs & PhD students and a support technical staff of two people. UGent-Woodlab acquired over 50 years of experience in scientific and technological research on wood and maintains close contacts with all segments of the wood-processing industry and research groups involved in the forestry-wood chain.
We focus on the sustainability of the forest-wood chain (see figure below) with emphasis on methodology development, to improve the management of our natural capital, and to to raise awareness in society about the importance of forests and wood.
The laboratory has elaborated its research activities in different research domains under 3 major headings:
(1) Forest growth and wood structure
Wood biology, wood quality, wood and tree properties, carbon sequestration, forest ecology, wood formation and tree ring analysis both for temperate and tropical regions.
(2) Bio-based building materials and service life
Biological durability, wood modification, wood preservation, coatings and service life prediction.
(3) Forest products innovation
Linking to processing and industrial products both as materials (sawn timber, wood-based panels, etc) and as a source of energy.
Fig.1 Research fields along the forest-wood chain an at UGent-Woodlab