Abstract
Wood (tree) has been used for structural material of house and furniture, for raw material of paper and rayon, and for drugs including anti-aids and anti-cancer from ancient. Wood is even promised for our future material since it is renewable resource by tree plantation and creats relaxing environment for human. These features depend on both wood chemical and anatomical features, and the wood characterization is demanded. However, wood is consisted of a few hundreds of compounds including cross-linked polymers with from nanometer order structure (oriented cellulose microfibrills) to meter order (vessels for water conduction from root to top of the tree). These make the characterization complicated and lengthy. In this review, the characterization of wood as a natural complex material was described for the analysis by near infrared FT-Raman spectroscopy as a rapid, non-destructive, and quantitative analytical method with our experience including the instrumental improvement for the quantification.
