A review on wood permeability: influential factors and measurement technologies

Gas and liquid permeabilities of wood are of utmost importance for numerous applications in the wood industry. This is a review study timeline on the technology advancement of the experimental procedures used for determining wood permeability using liquids or gases as infiltrating fluids. Also, anatomical (like presence of vessels, tracheids and pits, as well as heartwood/sapwood proportion), chemical (like cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin and extractives contents) and physical (like grain orientation and density) characteristics, which affect wood permeability, are herein discussed. Finally, advantages and limitations of the main existing methods to determine wood permeability are listed and compared to each other. Based on the currently used methodologies, it seems that there is a gap for new experimental procedures, which shall ally versatility, velocity, low cost and high precision.