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Publications

NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.

2013

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Abstract

Acetylation appears suited to provide adequate protection against biological attack for materials derived from non-durable wood species. But still there are unanswered questions related to resistance against fungal decay. The paper summarises existing knowledge related to fungal deterioration of acetic anhydride modified wood and also highlights future research opportunities. In addition, statistical analyses based on previously published decay fungi studies were performed to quantify what factors contribute most to the performance (calculated as test sample/control). The results showed that weight per cent gain can explain approximately 50% of the performance for acetic anhydride treated wood. Others of the applied variables, like wood species or type of fungus, can reduce the variance in performance by additional 15%. Based on the surveyed literature the degree of cell wall bulking in combination with lowering of the equilibrium moisture content seems to be the primary mode of action.

Abstract

Even if it is well established that acetylation of wood by the use of acetic anhydride is able to impart a significant degree of decay resistance, more evidence is needed to understand the mechanisms by which acetylated wood is protected from fungal decay. The aim of this paper was to study if a standardised leaching procedure with water (EN 84) vs. no leaching affected the Postia placenta decay of acetylated samples. Three different acetylation levels (low, medium and high) were tested in addition to untreated Southern yellow pine as control. The samples were harvested at two different stages of fungal incubation; 4 and 28 weeks. We compared changes in mass loss, wood moisture content, fungal biomass measured indirectly as fungal DNA, plus a small gene expression screening including five different genes. Generally there were not any striking differences between the leached and the non-leached samples. For the acetylated samples a statistically significant difference in mass loss between leached and non-leached samples were found at low and medium acetylation level after 28 weeks. Wood moisture content differed significantly between leached and non-leached acetylated samples for low acetylation level after 4 weeks and for at low and medium levels after 28 weeks. The gene expression levels were generally significantly lower after 4 weeks compared to 28 weeks of incubation. After 28 weeks no significant difference was found between leached and non-leached acetylated samples for any of the measured genes.

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Abstract

Besides its inherent resistance against degrading organisms, the durability of timber is infl uenced by design details and climatic conditions, making it diffi cult to treat wood durability as an absolute value. Durability classifi cation is, therefore, based on comparing performance indicators between the timber in question and a reference timber. These relative values are grouped and related to durability classes, which can refer to a high range of service-lives. The insuffi cient comparability of such durability records has turned out to be a key challenge for service-life prediction. This paper reviewed literature data, based on service-life measures, not masked by a durability classifi cation. It focused on natural durability of timber tested in the fi eld above-ground. Additionally, results from ongoing aboveground durability studies in Europe and Australia are presented and have been used for further analysis. In total, 163 durability recordings from 31 different test sites worldwide based on ten different test methods have been considered for calculation of resistance factors. The datasets were heterogeneous in quality and quantity; the resulting resistance factors suffered from high variation. In conclusion, an open platform for scientifi c exchange is needed to increase the amount of available service-life related data.