Woodnika. Timber

Wood innovation for Bioeconomy development

This project belongs to: Biosciencies and sustainability

The Basque Country’s timber sector needs to aim for the highest levels of quality, optimization and transformation of its products in order to meet the regulatory and competitive levels required by the wood market. It therefore goes without saying that sector innovation will be the driving force behind all of its technological, product, organisational and training activities.

Thanks to the appreciation of wood as a renewable material with the capacity to absorb CO2, it is now used in sustainable building and offers ample opportunities in terms of construction and refurbishment.

The Woodnika project is working on four areas: the characterisation of wood, research on wood sustainability, training for the sector and development of new wood-based products.

Meanwhile, work is still needed in order to place greater value on the benefits of wood and to promote a wood culture on a social level. In this process, training should become the main tool in order to ensure that wood plays a more relevant role in our societies.

This project involves the promotion of improvement, innovation and optimisation of production. As well as training in the different points of its value chain with the purpose of contributing to medium and long term improvements in the wood industry.
A huge experience-based legacy and knowledge of wood has been passed down from generation to generation. There was a time when tree species, quality and usefulness of the wood fibers, the time to chop down the tree, season and drying techniques for the best use and benefit of this value that is provided by nature were common knowledge.

With the growing use of synthetic materials in today’s society, it seems hard to imagine how dependant people were on forests and wood in the past. Our objectives are research, innovation and recovery of the wood tradition, using a combination of resources and technologies from today’s world.
We also work to improve the wood industry in the medium and long-term, from providing training on the use and production of wood, up to touching on all of the points along its value chain.

Actions carried out in the project:

Characterization projects of local wood species for structural use. Report
Analysis of the influence of the cutting date on the durability of the wood. Report
Application of laser technologies and printing on wood products. Development of new products