Organization:

Mendel university in Brno

Department:Department of wood science

Address:
Zemědělská, 1
Brno
61300 Czech Republic

Contact email: parilpetr6@gmail.com

Web page: http://mendelu.cz/en/     

Brief presentation of the institution: 
Mendel University in Brno is middle-size university in the Czech Republic (~ 11 thousands of students) that has long tradition in wood material research. Currently, the university has about 50 employees that perform research of various aspects related to wood and its use in practical life, including use of wood and other bio-based materials in buildings, furniture construction and design and many others applications. More specifically, the Department of Wood Science where proposers are located has knowledge, social capital and equipment for fundamental and applied research in field of experimental determination of wood properties and behavior of various wooden products, modified wood and wood-based composites. Dpt. of Wood Science has longterm and close research cooperation with many international partners, hereby there is list of few of them: Czech Academy of Science, Palackého university in Olomouc (CZ), University of Life Sciences in Vienna (AU), Technical University in Zvolen (SK), Aalto University in Helsinki (FIN), University in Ljubljana (SLO), University in Gottingen (GER), University of Hamburg (GER), West Hungary University in Sopron (HUN), Poznań University of Life (PL), Wood technology institute (PL) etc.

Main FP1407 related research topics:
Dpt. of Wood Science has an experience in field of wood modification (chemical modification, mechanical treatment, microwave treatment, heat treatment etc.), wood drying, wood structure analysis, numerical simulations etc. Nowadays, applicant of the project have been cooperating with industry partners (Bochemie a.s. – production of chemicals, Impregnace Soběslav s.r.o. – pressure impregnation, Romill s.r.o. – microwave treatment etc.). Proposers’ activity in the cooperation is optimizing of technological processes, development of new wood-based materials, process methods and techniques, measurements of physical and mechanical properties of wood, as well as numerical analysis of wood behaviour. Furthermore, the Dpt. of Wood Science always participates in several Czech as well as European funded projects dealing with developing of new wood-based materials for certain applications (buildings, cladding, flooring systems, decking, etc.) and measurements their properties related to environmental impact (VOC, aging etc.).

Brief information on available facilities:
Equipment available: 
For wood modifications, the following equipment is available: 1. continuous laboratory microwave equipment ROMIL (power of magnetron 0-6 kW with frequency 2.45 GHz); 2. experimental impregnation plant for chemical modification JHP 10072, pressure (900 kPa), vacuum, heating up to 160 °C; 3. heat treatment chamber KATRES for thermal modification (temperatures up to 250 °C, vacuum pressure system up to 1 bar, condensate disposal system, cooling of output air steaming), 4. air steaming chamber Konvektomat Siemens for thermal modification (steam of 40-100 °C, hot air of 30-230 °C, combination of steam and hot air of 120-230 °C); 5. Drying chamber Sanyo MOV 112 for drying in temperatures 5-250 °C. Climatization chamber Sanyo MTH 2400 (for 20 to 105 °C and RH from 1 to 99 %), chamber BEFI for condensing drying of wood (up to 55 °C). All mechanical tests will follow Czech and European testing standards (ČSN EN) and will be carried out at universal testing machine Zwick Z050 equiped with relevant set of grips. Controlling and evaluation of tests will be governed by SW TestXpert v. 11. Departments have further impedance and capacity moisture meters, ovens and drying boxes for gravity method, exsicators, complete equipments for description and imaging of materials at macroscopic and microscopic levels (binocular loupe, metallurgical microscope, light microscopes, taking and analyzing of microphotos), analytical scale Mettler Toledo, complete equipment for VOC evaluation (chamber VOC Test 1000), Xraydensitometer. For wood preservation tests, the equipment for laboratory table autoclave TUTTNAUER 3150EL, Cooled incubator Sanyo MIR 253, Cooled incubator VELP Scientifica FTC90E, Biohazard Cabinet Steril VBH Compact, Weathering test chamber QSUN Xe1, Mobile spectrophotometer Spectroguide 45/0. For machinability analyses one lab cutting stand and two highspeed stands for milling up to 9000 rpm (TOS). For thermal properties the Heat Flow Meter (HFM 436/6/1E) ranging from 0,0005 to 0,5 W/m.K will be used. Liquid Chromatography (1260 Infinity Analytical SFC System); Gas Chromatography (7693A Automatic Liquid Sampler ) and thermal desorber (HS5-TD) for chemical analysis.

Willingness to accept/host visiting researchers:
  Students
  Post-docs
  Senior Researchers

Projects related to FP1407:
The Establishment of an International Research Team for the Development of New Wood-based Materials (InWood) - CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0269.

Members: