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Marie Rosenqvist

Localization of Wood Improvement Compounds by Microautoradiography and ESEM

Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy, ESEM, was used to investigate microautoradiographs of Scots pine (Pinus silvestris L.) sapwood painted with a priming oil containing ¹⁴C-labelled alkyd paint binders.

Microautoradiography is a photographic method which reveals the localization of compounds labelled with a radioactive isotope in the investigated material. The photographically developed silver grains in the microautoradiograph indicate where the labelled compounds are situated.

Microautoradiographs were investigated with ESEM in their natural state, without conventional preparation techniques which are time-consuming and may cause unwanted artefacts. It is demonstrated that the wood structure is clearly visible in the mainly transparent photographic film of the microautoradiographs. Images produced by the backscatter emission detector were of high quality, silver grains and wood structure are visible at the same time and the images are almost without artefacts due to charge built-up, which it is not possible to achieve using a conventional SEM.

The investigation of penetration into wood with microautoradiography can thus be conveniently evaluated by ESEM.

Holzforschung, Walter de Gruyter

Print ISSN: 0018-3830
Volume: 53, 11/1999
Pages: 648 - 654

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