New Technology for Drying Wood Using Quicklime

There are several methods of drying wood however, each of them has its implications. This study involves a new method of drying wood which is fast, zero energy consumption, more economical and scalable. This method involves drying wood using quicklime. Raw Casuarina wood was placed in pits containing quicklime. One pit had one plank of wood and the other pit had four planks of wood. The absorption of water by the quicklime is the main idea of choosing that method to dry wood. The moisture content of the wood in both pits was measured every two days for ten days. The moisture content dropped from above 40% to 18%. To further reduce the moisture content, the same experiment was repeated with the same duration of ten days but after five days the quicklime was replaced. This has increased the rate of decrease of moisture content and dropped the moisture content from above 40% to 13%. In addition, the wood beams were graded according to the European standard of appearance grading of Oak. The wood produced through the drying method using quicklime resulted in an acceptable quality that can be used in the construction industry with a moisture content of 13%.