Nondestructive wood discrimination: FTIR – Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy in the characterization of different wood species used for artistic objects

Wooden artifacts represent a significant component of past cultures. Successful conservation of wooden artifacts depends on the knowledge of wood structure and types. It is critical that conservators know the category of wood that they are treating in order to successfully conserve it. Recently, vibrational spectroscopy has been successfully applied to determine the chemical structure of wood and to characterize wood types. FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared) is a useful nondestructive or micro-destructive analytical technique providing information about chemical bonding and molecular structure. Its application in the discrimination between softwoods (conifers) and hardwoods (broad-leafs) has already been reported. The aim of the present study was to investigate the potential of FTIR as a tool for the discrimination between different wood types belonging to the same genus. Three different hardwood species, namely poplar (Populus spp), lime (Tilia spp) and birch (Betula spp), were investigated by means of FT...