John Barnett

IAWA, IAWS and IUFRO Conference 23–26 June 2010, Madison, WI, USA

The International Academy of Wood Science, the Pan-American Regional Group of IAWA, and Division 5 of IUFRO are organizing a joint conference in Madison, WI, USA for June 23–26, 2010. This joint conference will serve as an international forum for the exchange of knowledge and experience in a wide variety of fields including tree biology, systematic wood anatomy and wood identification, paleobotany, ecophysiology, wood formation and cambial activity, and wood quality research. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss their recent research progress, exchange information, and develop collaborations. The conference will be held in the Memorial Union at 800 Langdon St. located on the shores of Lake Mendota on the University of Wisconsin, Madison campus. For updates, check the IAWS website http://www.iawsweb.org. The information is also available on the IAWA website http://www.iawawebsite.org or http://bio. kuleuven.be/sys/iawa/meetings.html, or the IUFRO website http://www.iufro.org/ events/calendar/current/. Deadline for registering without a late fee is May 1, 2010. Further information and registration forms can be obtained from Fellow Regis Miller (rmiller1@wisc.edu).

8th Pacific Regional Wood Anatomy Conference/Annual Meeting of International Academy of Wood Science (IAWS), Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China October 17–22, 2013

This year’s plenary meeting of the Academy was held jointly with the International Association of Wood Anatomists (IAWA) Pacific Region in Nanjing, China. It accords with the IAWS policy of linking its meetings with other wood science meetings worldwide. The meeting was attended by over 230 delegates, 83 of whom were from outside China. The Academy was welcomed to Nanjing by Xu Ming, the Vice Governor of Jiangsu province and Professor Jiang Zehui, Director General and Principal Scientist at the International Center for Bamboo and Rattan (ICBR), Beijing, China. More than 100 oral presentations and 80 posters were presented on a wide range of wood anatomy and wood science topics. The Academy Lecture was presented by Professor Pieter Baas from Leiden University and the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, the Netherlands, on wood anatomical diversity. Professor Baas is well known as an outstanding researcher, who has provided technical advances in wood anatomy and has been a long-time leader in IAWA. He was also instrumental in developing the former IAWA Bulletin into the high-quality IAWA Journal: the only one specializing in wood anatomy. During the conference, President Salmén presented the IAWS Distinguished Service Award to Professor Jiang Zehui, who also made a presentation about the ICBR’s research priorities and the use of bamboo. Professor Jiang has been a driving force in all areas of wood science and especially in advancing international programs throughout the world. Also presented was this year’s PhD Award, which went to Dr. Sergio Sanabria from ETH, Zurich, Switzerland, for his work in nondestructive testing of bonding quality in timber composites. The meeting concluded with an IAWS business meeting followed by the Fellows Dinner. Plans for the 2014 meeting are in hand and details will be announced in due course. More specific information can be obtained on the conference website: http://8thprwac.njfu.edu.cn/.

Annual meeting of IAWS 21–24 October 2013, Nanjing, China

The 2013 annual meeting of the Academy will be hosted by the Institute of Chemical Industry of Forest Products (ICIFP) Chinese Academy of Forestry (CAF) in Nanjing from 21 to 24 October 2013. This will take place together with the 8th Pacific Regional Wood Anatomy Conference (PRWAC 2013) from October 17 through 21 at the Nanjing Forestry University, China. The meeting will cover the biological, chemical and physical sciences of lignified natural materials and products derived therefrom, as well as the scientific basis of the technology of converting such substances into useful products.

IAWS PhD Prize

Nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC) from wood is an interesting material constituent of high strength and high aspect ratio, which easily forms networks through interfibril secondary bonding including hydrogen bonds. This has been exploited in preparation of new materials, which extend the range of properties for existing cellulosic materials. The objective is to explore processing–structure and structure– property relationships in NFC materials. Dense networks of NFC referred to as ‘‘nanopaper’’ having a random-in-theplane orientation of the fibrils have been successfully prepared by a papermakinglike process involving vacuum filtration and water evaporation using laboratory papermaking equipment. Large, flat and transparent nanopaper sheets have thus been prepared in a relatively short time. Using the same preparation route, NFC was used to reinforce pulped wood fibers in dense network structures. NFC networks formed in the pore space of the wood fiber network give an interesting hierarchical structure of reduced porosity. These NFC/wood fiber biocomposites have greater strength, greater stiffness and greater strain-to-failure than reference networks of wood fibers only. In particular, the work to fracture (area under the stress–strain curve) is doubled with an NFC content of only 2 %. The papermaking preparation route was extended to prepare nanocomposites of high NFC content with a cellulose derivative matrix (hydroxyethyl cellulose, HEC) strongly associated with the NFC. Little HEC was lost during filtration. The NFC/

News from the Academy

This year’s meeting was on the theme of ‘‘Novel Materials from Wood or Cellulose’’ and was co-sponsored by Innventia AB Stockholm and the Wallenberg Wood Science Centre of KTH/Chalmers Stockholm, Gothenberg. It was attended by 147 delegates from 26 countries, reflecting the rapid development of interest in this important field of wood science. Delegates were welcomed to Stockholm by Birgitta Sundblad, President of Innventia. Scientific proceedings commenced with an Academy Lecture presented by the current Chair of the Academy Board, Fellow George Jeronimidis. The theme of this keynote lecture was ‘‘Natural cellulose based hierarchies: concepts for novel materials and added functionality’’. A wide range of topics was covered, with keynote lectures by Antonio Pizzi (Wood welding and its applications in building and furniture), Philip Evans (Wood surface stabilization and coating performance), Maija Tenkanen (Potential enzymes in the biorefining of hemicelluloses to valueadded materials) and Hiroyuki Yano (Optically transparent cellulose nanocomposites – the transition of reinforcement from nanofibres to nanostructured fibres. One highlight of the meeting was the presentation of the first IAWS PhD thesis award to Katherina Beck for her thesis entitled ‘‘Development of new engineered wood products for structural applications made from trembling aspen and paper birch’’. Katherina obtained her PhD at the Universite Laval, Quebec, Canada, and was presented with her award, which included funding to attend the meeting and present the work (abstract below), together with a medal by the Academy President, Lennart Salmen. This prize is to be awarded annually, and applications for next year’s award are invited. Details are given below. A prize for the best poster was won by Friederike Saxe for her poster ‘‘Micromechanical and structural characterization of chitosan impregnated radiata pine wood’’. Second prize went to Sylvain Galland for a poster entitled ‘‘Native cellulose nanofibres decorated with magnetic ferrite nanoparticles – and nanostructured materials thereof’’. Altogether, there were 42 oral presentations and 37 posters, and many authors agreed to having their work posted on the Academy

Double honour for fellow Gerd Wegener

The outstanding research of Professor Wegener, presently Head of the Department of Wood Science and Technology at the Technische Universität München has been recognised by two Achievement Awards for his life’s work. He has been presented with the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Schweighofer Prize. At a major ceremony on 18th June, attended by 500 guests from over 30 nations, he was awarded the ‘‘Schweighofer Prize 2009’’ in the Vienna City Hall. This award for innovation, founded by the Austrian wood industry dynasty Schweighofer, is the most highly endowed European Award for the wood and timber industry. The citation for the award included the statement that ‘‘his innumerable innovative research approaches have led to new developments and have inspired generations of scientists and traders in the wood and timber industry’’. The Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany was decreed by the Federal President of Germany and Fellow Wegener received the appendant regalia – order and document on 3rd July 2009 from the Bavarian Minister of Agriculture, Helmut Brunner in a ceremony at the Ministry of State for Food, Agriculture and Forestry. The minister referred to Prof. Wegener as one of the most invaluable ‘‘ambassadors for the increased application of wood and wood products’’. The Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany is well-deserved recognition of his exemplary commitment towards the Bavarian Wood and Forest Industry. The congratulations of the Academy are offered to Fellow Wegener on these well-earned rewards.

IAWS representation at the Chinese Academy of Forestry: 50th anniversary celebrations

During 27–28 October 2008, the Chinese Academy of Forestry sponsored an international symposium, at which invited heads of research organizations provided presentations on ‘‘Forest Research in Response to Global Change’’. The IAWS official invitees were President Frank Beall and Past President Xavier Deglise. President Beall gave a presentation on ‘‘Contributions of IAWS Fellows to Climate Change Information’’, which was the invited topic. Among the delegates were nine IAWS Fellows (Bao, Beall, Chen, Deglise, Hse, Jiang, Saddler, Shimizu, Zhang), and representatives of four of the IAWS Supporting Members, including CAF. A special lunch was hosted by Fellow Jiang to honour IAWS Fellows and other friends from her years as President of CAF. In addition, Director Kelin Ye sponsored a visit to the Research Institute of Wood Industry for a small group of Canadian visitors and IAWS Fellows, and held a banquet afterwards. In addition to the IAWS delegation, there were representatives of the following organizations: IUFRO, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), ITTO, FAO, International Popular Commission (IPC), International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR), Asia Pacific Association of Forestry Research Organizations (APAFRI), World Forest Center (WFC), and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF, China).

Annual Plenary Meeting and Conference 2009—Saint Petersburg—Moscow 15–21 June 2009

1. Wood structure at the nano, micro, meso and macro scales. 2. Properties of wood as an industrial raw material. 3. Modern methods, techniques and equipment for the processing of wood. 4. Industrial control of wood and wood products. 5. Innovative and smart wood products. 6. Sustainable use of forest resources. 7. Multiple forest values and their estimation. 8. Forests in the changing world. 9. International aspects of forest resources utilization. 10. Forest resources and global wood products markets and trade. 11. Wood formation, wood plant physiology and dendrochronology. 12. Biomechanics.

Annual Plenary Meetings

The meeting in 2008 was held jointly with the Linnean Society of London and the International Association of Wood Anatomists and took place at Burlington House, the headquarters of the Linenan Society. The meeting was highly successful with more than 65 scientists representing 25 countries attending. Of these, 25 were Fellows of the Academy. The Academy thanks the President of the Linnean Society, Professor David Cutler, and Professor Pieter Baas on behalf of IAWA for organising the excellent programme, and the Linnean Society of London for inviting IAWS join them in the meeting to celebrate the work of John Barnett.

New Vice President

Professor Lennart Salmén has been elected as the new Vice President of the Academy. He is currently Research Manager of Fibre and Material Science as well as Deputy Director for the Department of Fibre, Pulp, Energy and Chemicals of STFI-Packforsk AB in Stockholm, Sweden. He was educated at KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology, in Stockholm, where he received his PhD in the subject of ‘‘Temperature and Water Induced Softening Behaviour of Wood Fibre Based Materials’’. In 1978– 79, he was a Research Fellow at PAPRICAN, Montreal, Canada. He was appointed Docent, Associate Professor, in Paper Technology at KTH, Stockholm, in 1987, and subsequently Professor in Wood Technology, Fibre Science, Paper Technology and Mechanical Pulping. He was elected Fellow of IAWS in 1996. His research has been mainly devoted to the understanding of the relationship between the properties of the polymeric constituents of wood and the macroscopic properties, mainly mechanical, of fibre, wood and paper materials. He is the author of more than 150 reviewed scientific papers in the field of fibre, wood and paper physics and the Editor of five books. Among other things, he has published studies of softening phenomena, cell wall properties, micro-mechanical modelling, water interaction, mechano-sorptive creep, dimensional stability, fatigue of wood, and mechanical and chemi-mechanical pulping. Much of his work has been devoted to the interaction of cellulosic material with moisture, where his development of moisture-induced dynamic FTIR has given new insights. From 1993 to 1995, he served as Secretary, Vice Chairman and Chairman of the Tappi Paper Physics Committee. He has been very active in the area of wood mechanics within EC COST actions trying to bridge the knowledge gap between wood and paper technology. This has led to the formation of the European Society of Wood Mechanics, ESWM, in 2000, of which he is Vice-Chairman. Since 2004, he has served on the board of the Wood Ultrastructural Research Centre, WURC, in Uppsala.