A
principal reason is that wood based materials contain very low
contents of nitrogen, which is required to produce the enzymes
needed for sufficient degradation of the main structural components
of wood – cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. While the
samples without any substrate modification exhibited initial C/N
ratios of 22–25:1, increasing the content of wood led to higher initial
C/N ratios of 35:1. In this context, Eiland et al. (2001) reported
that low initial C/N ratios caused more rapid degradation rates of
cellulose and hemicellulose (hemicellulose: 50–80%, cellulose:
40–60%), while high initial C/N ratios resulted in 10–20% degradation
of both hemicellulose and cellulose