The impacts of CaCO3 deposition in natural wood on its viscoelastic properties

In this study, we discuss the methods used for depositing calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and the resulting 2D and 3D particle distributions of CaCO3 in two types of wood, which were quantified using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray computed tomography (CT). We also present the results of dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), which was used to measure the impact of CaCO3 deposition on the viscoelastic properties of the wood. X-ray CT scanning showed that CaCO3 deposits inside the wood scaffold with increased amounts as the deposition cycles were iterated. However, DMA results did not indicate significant improvement in storage moduli (E′) of CaCO3 deposited wood. SEM images revealed that the particles did not fill all the voids to provide stress transfer between the wood scaffold and the particles, indicating a lack of composite action between the wood and CaCO3 components. To address this issue, we hypothesized that heat-pressing would lead to a mechanical bond between the particles and the matrix. After heat-pressing, DMA results showed a dramatic increase in E′ not only in CaCO3 deposited wood samples but also in control wood samples. In other words, the densification of the structure led to significant increases in E′, primarily due to densification, while the impact of the presence of CaCO3 particles was minimal. This is mainly because the volume fraction of the deposited CaCO3 particles is small as compared to the total volume of the composite.