Abstract
Due to the high demand of companies for generating energy from renewable sources, the aim of this study was to analyze the proprieties of wood and charcoal from three forest species: Ceiba pentandra (L.) Gaertn. (Sumaúma), Guatteria sp. (Envirão) e Brosimum sp. (Mumuré). The material was collected at the Empresa Rosa Madeireira Ltda., and from each species, 10 samples were collected for physical proprieties analysis of wood and charcoal, for this one, 5 samples were utilized for chemical analysis. The proprieties evaluated were: basic density and moisture content of wood, gravimetric charcoal yield, the apparent density and moisture content of charcoal and chemical composition. The data was submitted to the Analysis of Variance and the means were compared by the Tukey test at 5% probability level, as well as the effects of the basic density on the gravimetric yield and on the apparent density were tested using Pearson’s Correlation. The analysis indicated that the species factor had a significant effect on all the parameters, except for the moisture content of charcoal. Regarding the wood basic density, Sumaúma showed the lowest mean value (0.4302± 0.0157 g/cm3) and Mumuré, the highest (0.5276 ± 0.0251 g/cm3). However, in relation to the moisture content, Sumaúma was the species that presented the highest content (47.46% ± 2.88). The charcoal yield values ranged from 30.03% ± 1.95 (Envirão) to 32.35% ± 1.46 (Sumaúma). There was a correlation between the wood density and gravimetric yield for the Mumuré species (p= 0.553), but it was considered negative. Nevertheless, a positive correlation was found for Sumaúma (p = 0.058) and Envirão (p = 0.955). In the charcoal density tests, Mumuré showed the highest mean value (0.3173 ± 0.0116 g/cm3) and Envirão, the lowest (0.2654 ± 0.0407 g/cm3). A direct and positive relationship between the basic density of wood and relative apparent density of charcoal was found. For the chemical composition, the species factor did not show a significant effect.
Keywords:
Forest residues; Wood proprieties; Proprieties of charcoal