The moisture sorption behaviour of wood has a critical impact on service life. In Europe, softwood is mostly used to manufacture engineered wood products such as cross-laminated timber (CLT) or glue-laminated timber (GLT or glulam). Yet fast-growing and widespread tree species such as hybrid poplar with or without modification, have potential to meet the increasing demand. This study shows the moisture sorption properties of hybrid poplar, thermally modified poplar and compare them with spruce using dynamic vapour sorption (DVS). One of the more significant findings is that the overall moisture properties of poplar clones and spruce appear to be quite similar and the differences among the poplar clones are negligible. A significant decrease of moisture sorption of thermally modified poplar was observed. By comparing the sorption behaviour of solid wood samples and powder samples, we also discovered the inappropriacy of only using powder samples for DVS analysis.

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