Bondability of modified wood

This study investigates the bonding properties of modified wood by considering three different aspects: water related characteristics, mechanical performance and optical (fluorescence microscopy and X-ray micro-computed tomography) observation of adhesive penetration into modified wood structure. In recent years, the new wood modifications have become more commercially available in the market for both exterior and interior applications due to improved properties that modification can bring to the wood e.g. the improved biological durability, dimensional stability, hardness and weathering resistance of the wood as well as the environmentally friendly nature of the wood modification processes (Militz and Hill 2005).

Besides these advantages, modification can affect some technological aspects of the wood such as its bonding performance. For example, it can alter the strength of adhesion as a result of changes in chemical, physical and structural characteristics of the wood. For example, the less polar and less porous modified wood surfaces can result in reduced adhesion due to formation of less free OH groups for bonding leading to poorer adhesive wetting of the wood surface and weaker chemical bonds between the two adherents (Hunt et al. 2007). As modified wood becomes a more demanded material for different applications, there is a need to study its bonding performance where the challenge is to bond different modified materials as their physical and chemical characteristics are substantially changed by modification.