Forestry has now become a source of greenhouse gas emission as the growth of forests cannot keep up with the rate, they are used1.  Therefore, to mitigate this problem there’s a need to find new technologies which could improve the efficiency of forest use. A fundamental understanding of wood interactions might be the key to explore new wood treatment technology. Herein, we investigated the impact of oxygen level during hydrothermal treatment of softwood. To eliminate mass transfer limitation, we turned wood chips into sawdust of around 200-400 µm sizes. The sawdust then was subjected to varying dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations during hydrothermal treatment. The temperature of 140 °C for 15 – 120 minutes, in constant solid to liquid ratio and stirring in a batch reactor was employed during the treatment. The dissolved material was then analysed for Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), pH, lignin content and sugar composition analysis. Moreover, we will quantify cellulose and the changes in cellulose structure through molecular weight determination and crystallinity index of the solid fraction.  TDS provided a rough estimate of wood component dissolution for each treatment. High oxygen level treatment induced highest wood dissolution throughout the time of treatment. Same trend is observed for pH-level, lignin and carbohydrates content. The sugar composition of dissolved carbohydrates varied at different conditions. The findings provide strong evidence that in the absence of mass transfer limitations, oxygen affects the wood pre-treatment stage. In this presentation we will highlight the importance of cell wall analytics for understanding wood component dissolution and structural changes. 
Solid fraction analyses MethodCellulose content Acid hydrolysis-Gas chromatography*Molecular weight Wise method, High performance liquid chromatography2
Crystallinity index X-ray diffraction3
Liquid fraction analyses MethodTDS Gravimetric methodpH Potentiometric methodLignin UV-Vis spectrophotometry*Hemicellulose content Acid methanolyis-Gas chromatography4
*Laboratory-developed method