Water is an essential parameter for fungal degradation of wood, but degradation primarily occurs at high moisture levels at water potential in the range of -4 to -0.1 MPa, which corresponds to 97-99.9% relative humidity. At these moisture levels, water is present in the wood structure both in and outside of cell walls. The majority of previous studies on the interaction between wood and water for untreated as well as modified wood has, however, focused on the moisture range 0-95% relative humidity and mainly on water in cell walls. In this paper, we give examples of how precise conditioning of specimens using the pressure plate technique can be combined with other experimental techniques in order to get information on interactions between wood and water at humidity levels relevant for fungal degradation. We show examples of how pressure plate conditioning can be combined with Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and Low Field Magnetic Resonance (LFNMR) to get information not only about amount of water, but also about location and state of water in untreated and modified wood. Further use of such combination of techniques has potential to give valuable pieces of information on the role of water in degradation processes for untreated as well as modified wood.

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