• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.57-63
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• 2007

Anatomical characteristics of black and white charcoal of Quercus variabilis and Quercus mongolica manufactured by a Korean traditional kiln were investigated by scanning electron microscopy. In both charcoal, the earlywood vessels shrank in tangential direction, whereas the other cells didn't change. However, in the case of latewood vessels, black charcoal did not show tangential direction shrinkage, but white charcoal did. The wood fiber were changed severly in shape due to the excessive shrinkage. Tyloses in early wood vessel were still shown unchanged shape in both charcoals. Cell wall of ray parenchyma was observed and their shapes were severly distorted. Voids between ray parenchyma were observed in white charcoal, which maybe due to high temperature in white charcoal. Moreover, lumen diameters in the uniseriate ray and multiseriate ray were decreased at the high charring temperature. These results showed that the low charcoal yield of the white charcoal compared to the black charcoal was caused by decrease of cell dimensions as well as loss of wood components associated with the carbonization temperature.