Abstract: The study presented hereby is the first part of a more general investigation in Europe concerning the valorization of wood wastes by activation of carbon obtained by pyrolysis of different wood species. According to the large scale’ storage of wood wastes produced by wood industry and their low economical value induced by some strong defects, six different European wood species have been tested and their ability to produce charcoal has been qualified. These sik different wood species are: ash, beech, douglas, oak, white poplar and sitka spruce. Twenty-eight pyrolysis tests have been performed at different constant temperatures (390～672℃) during two hours. Another eight tests have been performed at two different temperatures (390℃ and 440℃) with four different wood species (oak, poplar, spruce and douglas). The pyrolysis duration is one hour. Tests on cubic wood samples have permitted to determine the dimensions variations and mass loses induced by the thermal degradation of wood during its carbonization. In particular, the conversion ratio of wood material into charcoal has been determined as a function of the wood species and the pyrolysis conditions. The experimental results show that the carbonization is complete for all the species at a temperature of 500℃ and the relative mass loss after a total carbonization is constant and tends to 25%. The shrinkage is near 30% in the tangential direction, 25% in the radial direction and 20% in the longitudinal direction. After the experimental result analysis, it shows that the conversion ratios of all the wood species are similar and they have no relationship with wood species. The theoretical porosity ratio formula is ε＝100-300ρ0i, the quality of charcoal product can be predicted by this formula.