Changes in wood-water relations in acetylated wood over the course of Rhodonia placenta brown rot decay

This dataset contains measurement data from the following publication:

Belt T, Altgen M (2025) Changes in wood-water relations in acetylated wood over the course of Rhodonia placenta brown rot decay. Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Engineering 20:19, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40712-025-00228-5

Abstract

Acetylation greatly increases the decay resistance of wood, but even highly acetylated wood can be degraded by fungi if given sufficient time. This study investigated the degradation of acetylated wood by the brown rot fungus Rhodonia placenta, aiming to understand the fungal-induced changes in wood-water relations that are associated with decay. Acetylated samples as well as unacetylated references were exposed to R. placenta in a stacked-sample decay test to generate samples in different stages of decay. The decayed samples were used to investigate changes in acetyl content, water vapour sorption, and maximum cell wall moisture content as measured by solute exclusion. R. placenta caused high mass losses in acetylated wood, but preferential deacetylation was seen only in highly acetylated samples in the early stages of decay. Acetylated samples showed increased hygroscopicity in sorption measurements as a result of R. placenta degradation, particularly at high relative humidity in desorption from the undried decaying state. The increase was very strong in the highly acetylated samples and took place at low mass losses, indicating that it may be at least partially related to the deacetylation of the wood material. Degradation also increased maximum cell wall moisture content, but the increase was stronger in the references than the acetylated samples, suggesting that the acetyl groups remaining in the samples continue to provide a cell wall bulking effect.

Data description

Methodological details can be found in the associated publication.

The "Sample IDs and mass data.csv" –file gives the sample identifiers and the modification and decay test mass data for all samples. The identifiers “sample type”, “replicate”, and “sample position” are the wood sample type (reference, WPG-9, or WPG-18), the replicate number (1-7), and the position of the sample in the stacked-sample decay test (1-6 from top to bottom). Masses minit, mmod, mwet, mdec, and mdec,estimated are the initial unmodified dry mass, the modified dry mass, the decaying wet mass, the decayed dry mass, and estimated decayed dry mass, respectively. Estimated decayed dry mass rather than decayed dry mass was determined for samples used for solute exclusion measurements.

The ”Sorption data” – folder contains sorption measurement data for the selected samples. The “Setup.csv” –file gives the positions of the samples in the sample carousel of the automated sorption balance, while the remaining files give the measured mass, relative humidity, and temperature data over the sorption measurement sequence for a given sample. The file names correspond with the sample IDs given in the "Sample IDs and mass data.csv" –file.

The ”Solute exclusion data.csv” –file contains solute exclusion data for the selected samples. “Condition” is the sample condition before measurement (dried or not dried), while the masses minit, mfinal, mWS, and msol are the initial dry sample mass before leaching, the final dry sample mass after leaching, the water-saturated sample mass, and the mass of the added dextran probe solution. The dextran probe concentrations “Csample“ and “Cinit“ are the HPLC peak areas of the probe solution after incubation with the sample and the HPLC peak area of initial probe solution.

The ”Acetyl content data.csv” –file contains the measured acetyl contents (g/g) of the sorption and solute exclusion samples.