Advances in microscopy benefit research

Kyle Mirable, a graduate fellow in the college’s Wood-Based Composites Center, and Professor Audrey Zink-Sharp have explored and established a video microscopy technique that digitally acquires and stitches up to 50 microscopic images into a single large-scale image of a wood and adhesive bondline. This is a first in light microscopic efforts for comprehensive visualization of penetration of an adhesive into the wood cell structure of an adhesive bond.

Mirable’s technique allows imaging of large, continuous regions of earlywood and latewood into one integrated bondline image. Previously, scientists had to use incomplete and discontinuous portions of microscopic images to accomplish what Mirable has provided in large continuous format. “The ability to view several continuous millimeters of an adhesive bondline magnified with light microscopy provides us the opportunity to pinpoint locations of inadequate adhesive penetration across an entire bondline rather than having to rely on piecewise speculation taken from individual images cut from the bondline,” Zink-Sharp said.