Variation in the Percentages of the Bark of Ten Tropical Hardwood Species Growing in Nigeria

Abstract

There is an increasing global interest in bark utilization as a substitute to fossil fuel as a result of climate change problems.  Efforts are being directed at promoting sustainable utilization of wood bark in biorefineries and in tannin adhesives production. Until recently, bark is treated as a waste, thus, little research efforts are directed at studying the bark percentage of indigenous hardwoods in Nigeria. This study shows that there is high variation in the bark percentages of the wood species used.   The mean bark percentage ranged from 6.08% in A. leiocarpus to 15.00% in D. senegalense.  Within species variation was also observed to be high. The bark percentage ranged from 5.88 to 12.5% in A. nilotica and 5.88 to 12.24% in A. Africana respectively.

Keywords: bark, bioresources, bark percentages, hardwoods, variations.