Fire retardant treated (FRT) timber can be produced by impregnation under high pressure with aqueous guanyl-urea phosphate (GUP) and BA (Gao et al., 2006). However, neither GUP nor BA is strongly attached to the wood polymers and normally leach out during weathering; thus, wood loses its fire retarding property (Mantanis, 2002). Wood modified with melamine- formaldehyde (MF) resin can provide an increased dimensional stability (Inoue et al., 1993), thermal stability (Deka et al., 2002) and to some extent improve fire performance (Xie et al., 2016). Blending MF resin and the conventional fire retardant (FR) for decreasing leaching from the FRT timber has been poorly researched, up to date. The aim of this work was to evaluate the leachability of the FR by treating pine wood with MF resin/GUP/BA, and followed by an analysis of the fire behaviour of the treated material. The cured MF resin is thus expected to form a hydrophobic polymeric network and incorporate the FR within the wood cell wall.
Keywords: fire retardant, melamine-formaldehyde, leachability
Authors
Chia-Feng Lin
Luleå University of Technology, Wood Science and Engineering, Skellefteå
Olov Karlsson
George I. Mantanis
Dick Sandberg
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