Impregnation Modification of Wood Seminar

The excellent properties of wood are widely recognized due to the fact that it has been used in the manufacture of structures and shelters from the earliest ages of man. The demand for forest and forests product keeps on increasing as the forest estate is drastically reducing with increasing population and civilization. The increase in the demand of forest and its products in Nigeria has led to the over-exploitation of the Natural Forest and thereby affecting has abundant effect on deforestation. The annual demand for wood as a construction material exceeds the quantity of round log extracted from the forest reserves and forest plantations per annum. Out of about 10 million cubic meter of wood Nigeria requires for her major constructions, 0.62 million cubic meter can only be provided by the Forest reserves and existing plantations (Umeh, 1975).  Wood has been preferred for residential construction since ancient times because of its natural beauty and excellent properties, such as, high specific strength, heat insulation, and ease of handling and processing (Su 1997). But, wood is much more easily degraded by environmental agents, including fire, biological organisms, water, and light, than many man-made materials (Kiguchi and Evans 1998). Preservative treatment is effective and can extend the service life of wood and wood products (Ahmed and Moren 2012).

Impregnated modified wood has been observed to be dimensionally stable in service in terms of physical properties and also has high strength properties as the impregnation of the chemicals tends to improve the wood physical and chemical structure.  It also enhances the reduction of internal stresses and reduces the susceptibility of the wood to termite attack and increase the durability against fungi. Of all the methods of impregnating wood with chemicals, resin impregnation is the most common and has been discovered to be one of the most effective methods of impregnating wood with chemicals with ASE values approaching 100%.