T02_P09

Squeaky clean cellulose for different applications

Khumalo W¹,  Svarva H¹, Zurbach D¹, Nadeau M¹

¹The National Laboratory for Age Determination, Trondheim, Norway

This project aims to determine the most time effective method of extracting cellulose “clean” enough for applications in ¹⁴C dating and stable isotope analysis, namely δ¹⁸O, for both young and old wood samples. We compare classic, commonly used, methods for the extraction of cellulose to more recent, simpler approaches.

α-Cellulose is considered the best component to extract for high precision ¹⁴C dating of younger wood samples. However, these methods are often too destructive on old wood samples resulting in sample yields too small for ¹⁴C dating. Vigorous cellulose extraction methods needed for ¹⁴C dating may not be necessary to produce accurate δ¹⁸O results. Therefore, we also consider more crude cleaning methods. Specifically, the use of di-glyme and other organic compounds to pretreat wood samples in a much shorter time.

We analyse the purity of cellulose, determined by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), in relation to the ¹⁴C and δ¹⁸O results as well as pretreatment yields for modern and old samples. The goal of this being to determine how “clean” a sample must be to produce accurate results while avoiding un-necessary cleaning steps while producing a high enough yield for analysis. This project investigates if different approaches for wood pretreatment are needed depending on application and the preservation of the wood.