Polystyrene Poland Woods Resistance to Bio-Deterioration

Abstract

Chemical modification of wood originally involved any chemical reaction between the hydroxyl groups of principal wood components and a single chemical reagent. In recent years, chemical modification has also included several chemical systems that affect the cell wall and fill the void spaces in wood. Some of these modifications of wood that have been studied to improve hygroscopic, mechanical, viscoelastic, and fire-retardant properties are interesting for wood preservation techniques too. The effectiveness of chemical modification in enchancing biological resistance has been assumed to be mostly due to crosslinking, bulking, or a combination of both for dimensional stabilization. Hydroxyl groups in the cell wall polymers are not only the water adsorption sites but also biological enzymatic reaction sotes (2). Polystyrene wood with thermal polymerization process has been veriefied in the industrial scale in Polarid (3). Properties of palm wood from inside zones are characterized by the low quality could be valorized above properties of wood from external zone characterized by high density and good quality with polystyrene impregnation (4). The polystyrene content affected the wood properties, a higher polystyrene content in wood gave higher dimensional stability, modulus of rupture, and hardness (5). Liese (6) stated that impregnation of monomer styrene to bamboo and rattan for the production of polystyrene composites improved technical properties and biological resistance, and Hadi et al. (7) mentioned that polystyrene bamboo with weight gain of 11% had more resistant to dry wood termite, powder post beetle, and fungal attacks than the control bamboo. The purpose of this experiment was to find out the resistance of four Poland woods to biodeterioration, in this work the control was compared to polysyrened woods. The woods were tested to Cryptotermes cynocephalus dry wood termite, Macrotermes gilvus subterranean termite, and Schizophyllum commune fungi.