ABSTRACT
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For the most part, humans have made the most of wood while putting up with the “natural defects” that accompany it, such as dimensional instability and degradation due to weathering, fire, and decay. Wood is a hygroscopic resource designed to perform, in nature, in a wet environment. Nature is programmed to recycle wood in a timely way through biological, thermal, aqueous, photochemical, chemical, and mechanical degradations. In simple terms, nature builds wood from carbon dioxide and water and has all the tools to recycle it back to the starting chemicals. We harvest a green tree and convert it into dry products, and nature, with its arsenal of degrading reactions, starts to reclaim it at its first opportunity.
