Summary
The chemical composition of cork from Quercus suber L. was determined for virgin cork and for reproduction cork. Average chemical composition of virgin cork is: ash 0.7%, total extractives 15.3%, suberin 38.6%, lignin 21.7% and polysaccharides 18.2%. The carbohydrate composition shows that glucose represents 50.6% of all monosaccharides, xylose 35.0%, arabinose 7.0% and galactose and mannose, respectively, 3.6% and 3.4%. Reproduction cork has a composition similar to virgin cork. For the cases studied, reproduction cork had however less extractives and a higher amount of suberin. Significant differences were found for the chemical composition of virgin cork in relation to location of extractives and polysaccharide content. The between-tree variability was large and a variation within the tree was also recorded.
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The author is grateful for the help of collaborators throughout the chemical analysis of the many samples: Joaquina Ferreira, A. Velez Marques, M. Lurdes Ferreira, Rosa Amorim and Célia Constâncio.
The work was financially supported by the Instituto de Ciência e Tecnologia dos Materiais (ICTM), Lisbon, Portugal
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Pereira, H. Chemical composition and variability of cork from Quercus suber L.. Wood Sci.Technol. 22, 211–218 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00386015
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00386015