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Phytochemical investigation of a high potency variety of Cannabis sativa L. resulted in the isolation of six new metabolites, (±)-6,7-trans-epoxycannabigerolic acid (2), (±)-6,7-cisepoxycannabigerolic acid (3), (±)-6,7-cis-epoxycannabigerol (4), (±)-6,7-trans-epoxycannabigerol (5), 5′-methyl-4-pentylbiphenyl-2,2′,6-triol (7), and 7-methoxycannabispirone (8), along with seven known compounds namely, cannabigerolic acid (1), 5′-methoxycannabigerolic acid (6), cannabispirone (9), β-cannabispiranol (10), dehydrocannabifuran (11), cannflavin B (12) and cannabigerol (13). The antimicrobial as well as the antileishmanial activities were investigated.

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6In order to study the adsorption for methylene blue (MB), five types of activated 7 carbon fibers (ACFs) were prepared from liquefied wood by different activation 8 methods. The ACFs activated by pure physical and chemical activation were dominantly 9 microporous and mesoporous, respectively, which showed relatively low adsorption 10 capacity for MB. The chemical/physical coupling activation was an effective method to 11 improve the mesoporosity resulting in the reinforcement of MB adsorption ability. ACFs 12 by chemical-physical reactivation even had abundant macropores in addition to 13 well-developed micro-and mesoporosity, while physical-chemical reactivation did not 14 seem to be an efficient one. Their potentially different mechanisms of pore formation 15 and kinetics adsorption of MB were investigated.16

In this study, poly(lactic acid) (PLA)/wood flour (WF) composites were prepared by first blending PLA with organo-montmorillonite (OMMT) at different contents (0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2 wt %). The physical and mechanical properties of the virgin and OMMT modified PLA and its WF composites were tested. The results showed that: (1) at low OMMT content (<1 wt %), OMMT can uniformly disperse into the PLA matrix with highly exfoliated structures. When the content increased to 1.5 wt %, some aggregations occurred; (2) after a second extruding process, the aggregated OMMT redistributed into PLA and part of OMMT even penetrated into the WF cell wall. However, at the highest OMMT content (2 wt %), aggregates still existed; (3) the highly exfoliated OMMT was beneficial to the physical and mechanical properties of PLA and the WF composites. The optimal group of OMMT-modified PLA was found at an OMMT content of 0.5 wt %, while for the PLA/WF system, the best properties were achieved at an OMMT content of 1.5 wt %.

In order to investigate the shrinking and swelling behavior of wood at a non-equilibrium state, the moisture sorption processes of wood under constant and changing conditions were studied. For the static sorption experiment, Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata) specimens were subjected to the adsorption processes at 25°C, 10 different relative humidity environments and the moisture contents were measured at distinct time intervals of adsorption processes. For the dynamic sorption experiment, the specimens were exposed to periodically and linearly varying relative humidity between 45% and 75% at 25°C. Moisture content as well as radial and tangential dimensional changes in response to the changing relative humidity were measured. The main results from the experiments indicated that: the moisture sorption isotherms of Chinese fir at equilibrium state and different stages of adsorption processes could be characterized by S-shape curves. From the non-equilibrium state to the equilibrium state, the sigmoid moisture sorption isotherms changed from smooth, gradually increasing values to a steep rise at 100% humidity. Furthermore, under dynamic conditions with a constant temperature and a linearly and periodically varying relative humidity, the moisture content as well as radial and tangential dimensional changes of the specimens generally waved but lagged behind the relative humidity change.