4. Conclusions
Treatment of Eucalyptus grandis wood with ligninolytic fungi revealed a reduction in the content of lignin and
extractives together with a small mass loss of the substrate (less than 3%) according to the development of
sustainable technological processes.
A novel assessment for the analysis of the effect of fungal treatment is here applied. This study shows that the
transport properties in radial direction of Eucalyptus grandis wood are favorably increased by biological treatment
(G. subvermispora). However, no changes were found in tangential direction, which can be explained by the natural
preference of fungus to initially grow in parenchymal tissues as radial cells. The increase in capillarity can be related
to a shortening of the time needed to achieve a particular level of impregnation during preservation treatment,
pulping or fractionation process. In this sense the fungal action on wood have a potential positive impact in
delignification and subsequent impregnation steps of industrial processes.
Biological treatment of wood of Eucalyptus grandis using G. subvermispora might result promising as a
biotechnological tool in environmentally-sound and alternative industrial processes to improve the properties of the
starting woody material such as ones related to the pulp and timber industries.