Determination of Chemical Components of Benzene/Ethanol Extractive of Beech Wood by GC/MS

Beech tree has high adaptability to environment and tolerance to water stress, and a long history of utilization and plantation in many countries. Moreover, beech wood is world- widely used as high-grade timber of paper making for its dendrological characteristics of fast growing, high biomass, medium density, high impact ductility, compressively bend strength. However, researches on Beech wood were mostly focused on the dendrological analyses and utilizations of its wood, especially papermaking, and lacked those to analyze the chemical components of extractive of Beech wood, which was very important to recover and utilize the polluting wastewater from pretreated Beech wood. Therefore, in order to separate top value-added bioactive components from wastewater of treated Beech wood and hence decrease its pollution to water environment, we attempted to analyze the chemical components of benzene/ethanol extractive of Beech wood by means of GC/MS. Relative content of each component was determined by area normalization, and 16 compounds representing 83.4% of the extractives were identified. The most abundant constituents were as: 1,2-benzenedicarboxylic acid,4-hydroxy- (43.53%), 6-(2- formylhydrazino)-N,N´-bis(isopropyl)-1,3,5-triazine-2,4-diamine (9.50%), benzofuran,2,3-dihydro- (6.08%), 4-morpholineethanol, (5.11%), p-xylene (4.94%), cyclohexane,1,1´-oxybis- (3.35%), phenol,4-(3-hydroxy-1-propenyl)-2-methoxy- (3.15%), phenol,2,6-dimethoxy- (3.13%), 1-hexanol,2-ethyl- (3.13%), bicyclo[4.1.0]heptan-2-one, 6-methyl- (2.00%), etc. As the first report here, our result by GC/MS showed that the benzene- methanol extractive of freeze-dried beech wood can be developed into top value-added materials of medicines, cosmetics, biofuel, and industrial solvents.