Selective assessment of duplex heat-treated wood by near-infrared spectroscopy with principal component and kinetic analyses

We selectively assessed the thermal and hygrothermal treatment times of duplex heat-treated samples from the softwood hinoki cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa) and the hardwood Japanese zelkova (Zelkova serrata) using near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy with principal component analysis (PCA) and spectral-kinetic analysis. Wood samples from each species were thermally or hygrothermally treated at 120, 130, 150, and 180 °C, and the second-derivative spectra of these samples in the 6300–5450 cm^?1 range, where moisture content has the smallest effect, were then subjected to PCA. The master curve that was calculated by kinetic analysis successfully explained changes in the first principal component (PC1) scores with thermal treatment time for all temperatures. The angles between the PC1 loadings that explained the spectral variation due to thermal and hygrothermal treatment were 79° for hinoki and 80° for zelkova. Thus, calculation of the inner product between the second-derivative spectra of duplex heat-treated wood and a loading vector that explained the spectral variation due to thermal or hygrothermal treatment allowed us to selectively assess the thermal and hygrothermal treatment times.