Chapter 15: Discussion on Prior Commercial Wood Preservation Systems That Performed Less Well Than Expected

Abstract

This article reviews five prior commercial wood preservatives that had efficacy concerns. A common factor among all five systems was minimal or no field testing of the proposed system prior to commercialization. Also, the formulation of a successful preservative was twice changed, and one successful system was employed with a new wood species. There is no intent to hold responsible any individual(s), company(ies), or organization(s) for these failures; the purpose is to simply discuss systems which performed less well than expected and report on failure factors. Because it appears that longer field evaluations prior to commercialization might have identified poor performance, a preliminary study of the effect of exposure time was performed. Data from three ground-contact studies of the fungal efficacy of experimental systems run at two sites were compared to the efficacies of positive control biocides which have long provided adequate commercial wood protection. Systems that were “poor” because of low initial biocide treatment required an exposure of three or fewer years to detect differences from a positive control. However, some systems which were treated to moderate biocide levels, and initially performed adequately, suffered greater fungal degradation than the positive controls after four or more years. This study indicates that exposure times longer than the currently-required three years may be needed to determine if a system treated to the proposed commercial retentions will perform adequately for the long service life expected by consumers.

Citation

Schultz, Tor P.; Nicholas, Darrel D.; Lebow, Patti. 2014. Chapter 15: Discussion on Prior Commercial Wood Preservation Systems That Performed Less Well Than Expected. In Deterioration and Protection of Sustainable Biomaterials; Schultz, T., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2014; pp. 255-265.