A bark comprises about 10 to 20 percents of a typical log by volume, and is generally considered as an unwanted residue rather than a potential1y valuable resourses, As the world has been confronted with decreasing forest resources, natural resources ...
A bark comprises about 10 to 20 percents of a typical log by volume, and is generally considered as an unwanted residue rather than a potential1y valuable resourses, As the world has been confronted with decreasing forest resources, natural resources pressure dictate that a bark should be a raw material instead of a waste. The utilization of the largely wasted bark of genus Pinus, Quercus, and Populus grown in Korea can be enhanced by learning their chemical properties. However, the chemical study of tree bark grown in korea have never been undertaken. In the present paper, the studies on the chemical properties of bark comprise carbohydrates, lignin, and extractives, composition of reducing sugars and five essential elements. The results may be summarized as follows: 1. Bark are much richer in quantity of lignin and extractives than the corresponding wood, and are chiefly consisted of lignin, extractives and carbohydrates orderly. It is the same with ash contents. Alcohol-benzene extractives of populus bark are the highest among three genus. 2. Although glucose constitutes the major sugar in both pine and hardwoods bark, in pinus, arabinose and xylose are the next but in hard woods, the next is xylose. 3. Essential elements, Ca and Kjeldahl-N are higher in the bark than in the wood. Ca content is the highest among others, and N,K followed it. Essential elements are higher in Quercus than in Populus and pinus.