Investigation of Influence of Different Fungi on Decaying of White Birch by Electrochemical Fingerprints

Abstract

Decaying of wood is a complex process, and the study of the mechanism and the changes of chemical substances caused by wood decay can provide a theoretical basis for the selection of decay-resistant construction materials. Electrochemical fingerprinting is a novel analytical technique to determine the signal of electrochemically active substances in a sample. In this work, electrochemical techniques were used to investigate changes in fingerprint profiles of white birch building timber after decay by different wood decay fungi. Combined with infrared spectroscopy, we found that the lignin was degraded to some extent in all wood decay caused by white rot fungi. Although the change of benzene ring skeleton was not obvious, the side chains such as the disease group, CH structure, and phenol ether bond between the benzene rings of lignin had been partially degraded. In contrast, no degradation of lignin was found after decay by brown rot fungi. In addition, all timber had degradation of cellulose and hemicellulose functional groups.