Meeting Future Energy Needs in the Hindu Kush Himalaya

As mentioned in earlier chapters, the HKH regions form the entirety of some countries, a major part of other countries, and a small percentage of yet others. Because of this, when we speak about meeting the energy needs of the HKH region we need to be clear that we are not necessarily talking about the countries that host the HKH, but the clearly delineated mountainous regions that form the HKH within these countries. It then immediately becomes clear that energy provisioning has to be done in a mountain context characterized by low densities of population, low incomes, dispersed populations, grossly underdeveloped markets, low capabilities, and poor economies of scale. In other words, the energy policies and strategies for the HKH region have to be specific to these mountain contexts

Wood Science and Technology

The objective of this paper is to review the published literature on improving properties of wood composites through thermal pretreatment of wood. Thermal pretreatment has been conducted in moist environments using hot water or steam at temperatures up to 180 and 230 °C, respectively, or in dry environments using inert gases at temperatures up to 240 °C. In these conditions, hemicelluloses are removed, crystallinity index of cellulose is increased, and cellulose degree of polymerization is reduced, while lignin is not considerably affected. Thermally modified wood has been used to manufacture wood–plastic composites, particleboard, oriented strand board, binderless panels, fiberboard, waferboard, and flakeboard. Thermal pretreatment considerably reduced water absorption and thickness swelling of wood composites, which has been attributed mainly to the removal of hemicelluloses. Mechanical properties have been increased or sometimes reduced, depending on the product and the conditions of the pretreatment. Thermal pretreatment has also shown to improve the resistance of composites to decay.Cuencavolumen 47; número