Analyzing the curing temperature and -behavior of impregnation resins in wood can help to develop a cost-efficient and effective wood modification process. A well-known approach to analyze it is dynamic scanning calorimetry (DSC). It has been used to analyze the curing of established impregnation resin systems, such as furfurylation (Herold et al. 2013), phenol-formaldehyde resins (Biziks et al. 2020), and melamine-urea-formaldehyde resins (Li et al. 2022). Additionally, the wood-resin interaction can be studied, which can influence the curing characteristics (He and Yan 2005). Testing a complex system such as wood combined with a resin can lead to specific challenges such as signal overlap or artifacts due to the resin structure, and the experimental setup has to be chosen carefully. This study aims to critically discuss the advantages and disadvantages of various DSC testing methods: analysis with open or closed crucibles as well as differences between analyzing the pure resins or impregnated wood. Additionally, the results from DSC are compared to wood properties. The test setups are studied on 1,3-Dimethylol-4,5-dihydroxyethyleneurea (DMDHEU) and a guanidine phosphate-based flame retardant (FR) as impregnation chemicals.
Keywords: Dynamic scanning calorimetry (DSC), Impregnation resins, Flame retardants
Authors
Johannes Karthäuser
Georg-August University of Goettingen, Department of Wood Biology and Wood Products, Goettingen, Germany
Victoria Buchhagen
Georg-August University of Goettingen, Department of Wood Biology and Wood Products, Goettingen, Germany
Holger Militz
Georg-August University of Goettingen, Department of Wood Biology and Wood Products, Goettingen, Germany
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