FTIR spectroscopy for determination of the raw materials used in wood pellet production

The research investigates the possibility of distinguishing pellet wood fuels using infrared spectroscopy. It has been applied Attenuated Total Reflectance – Fourier Transform InfraRed (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy, deemed an analysis technique appropriate for detecting the chemical composition of materials, to determine woody components make up a wood pellet. Considering the large quantities of this solid biofuel on the market, it is necessary to guarantee the safety and traceability aspects of the product, as its origin and source, in addition to the quality parameters indicated by the ISO 17225-2 standards. In this study, a total of 98 samples of the most common wood used for European pellet production, have been selected and collected. This set of samples include also materials coming from the wood industry, as residues of the chemical process. Through clustering analysis Principal component Analysis (PCA) and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA) techniques applied to spectroscopic analyzer data, it has been seen that ATR-FTIR results provide information on wood pellet typology, hardwood and softwood, and pellet made by woody materials containing high quantity of chemical products like glues.