By promoting greenhouse gas sequestration, bamboo and bamboo-based products can improve carbon storage, and thus help decrease greenhouses gas emission through replacing traditional products like concrete, steel, and alloy. Thermal modification is a useful way to effectively enhance the dimensional stability and mold-resistance property of bamboo and bamboo-based products compared with chemical treatment. This work investigates the change in anti-mildew properties, micro-structure, and chemical composition of bamboo after heat treatment. Saturated steam heat treatment was applied for this project. SEM results showed that the structural damage of parenchyma cells resulted in the separation of thin-walled cells and vascular bundles. Thus, the original regular structure of bamboo, characterized by plump and intact cells, changed markedly. After thermal modification, bamboo samples exhibited improved dimensional stability and anti-fungal properties due to the decrement of hemicellulose and cellulose. The hardness and MOE of the modified bamboo were 0.75 and 20.6 GPa, respectively.
Keywords: anti-mildew property; bamboo; bamboo cell wall; thermal modification.