Development of a bio-based thermo-chemical treatment for wood modification to improve wood properties and promote its use as building material

• Forschungsstelle: COST
• Projektnummer: C15.0090
• Projekttitel Englisch: Development of a bio-based thermo-chemical treatment for wood modification to improve wood properties and promote its use as building material

Schlüsselwörter (Englisch)

Wood modification; chemical treatment; thermal treatmen; biopolyesters; lactic acid; polybutylene succinate

Forschungsprogramme (Englisch)

COST-Action FP1303 - Performance of bio-based building materials

Kurzbeschreibung (Englisch)

For a sustainable development of society, wood, as renewable and bio-based resource, should be always more promoted as building material. Unfortunately, its inherent hygroscopicity constitutes a noticeable challenge to overcome because it is the main reason for dimensional instability, mold growth and fungal decay that lead to service life decrease and necessary maintenance. By reducing the response of wood to moisture, chemical and thermal modification are two options providing improved performance outdoors. The goal of this project is to combine chemical modification of wood by bio-based polyesters and thermo-treatment. This process is completely innovative and consists in a bulk impregnation of solid wood with liquid oligomers of polylactic acid or polybutylene succinate. After impregnation, the thermo-treatment step under dry or wet conditions will allow the penetration of the polar polyesters into wood cell wall, and provoke the in-situ further polymerisation. A screening of bio-polyesters as chemical treatment for wood was just achieved (national funded project C11.0129) and gave very promising results. Those compounds are extractable from bio-resources and always more of interest for the biodegradable thermoplastic industry. The idea to combine the best performing of those polyesters wood treatment with an additional or combined thermo-treatment, which usually leads to a significant decrease of mechanical resistance, will allow to improve significantly the wood outdoor performance in terms of sensitivity to moisture while maintaining good mechanical properties because of the in-situ polymerisation.

Weitere Hinweise und Angaben (Englisch)

Full name of research-institution/enterprise: Berner Fachhochschule Departement Architektur, Holz und Bau

Partner und Internationale Organisationen (Englisch)

AT; BE; BG; HR; CZ; DK; EE; FI; FR; DE; EL; HU; IE; IT; LV; LT; NL; NO; PL; PT; RO: RS; SK; SI; ES; SE; TR; UK

Abstract (Englisch)

See short description

Datenbankreferenzen (Englisch)

Swiss Database: COST-DB of the State Secretariat for Education and Research Hallwylstrasse 4 CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland Tel. [phone] Swiss Project-Number: C15.0090