VACUUM-PRESSURE TREATMENT OF RUBBERWOOD (<em>HEVEA</em> <em>BRASILIENSIS</em>) USING BORON-BASED PRESERVATIVE

Abstract

SALAMAH, S. & MOHD DAHLAN, J. 2008, Vacuum-pressure treatment of rubberwood (Hevea brasiliensis)
using boron-based preservative. Rubberwood is highly susceptible to biodegrading organisms. To minimize
this problem, effective preservative treatment needs to be carried out immediately to ensure that the timber
is fully protected. Generally, a pressure treatment process would be adopted to force high preservative
loading into the outer layer of the timber, followed by natural diffusion process of the preservative into
the core area during seasoning. Apart from pressure intensity and pressure duration, timber sizes and
concentration of preservatives used would largely influence the effectiveness of pressure impregnation
process. In this study, four different thickness of rubberwood were selected viz. 25 × 25 mm, 50 × 50 mm, 75
× 75 mm and 100 × 100 mm, and 600 mm long. The samples were treated with 1, 2, 3 and 4 % w/w boron
preservatives using the vacuum-pressure impregnation process. The determination of preservative loading
in the wood samples was based on a modified method of Japanese Agriculture Standard for Plywood 1985
using Inductively Couple Plasma Spectrometry.