Impregnation of Wood with Waste Engine Oil to Increase Water- and Bio-Resistance

Abstract

Impregnation is a common method of protecting wood from external influences. This study proposes the use of spent engine oil as an impregnating composition for modifying birch wood to make it resistant to biological degradation and water. The indicators of water resistance and dimensional stability of wood such as wetting contact angle, thermogravimetric analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and biodegradation tests have been determined. It has been found that treatment with spent engine oil significantly increases the dimensional stability (56.8% and 45.7% in tangential and radial directions) and water-resistant indicators of wood. Thermogravimetric analysis has showed that the curves for the impregnated specimens were different from the control group and had two sharp peaks at 302 and 357 °C. However, FTIR indicated that no clear chemical reactions occur between spent engine oil and wood. A study on wood resistance to biological degradation has showed a significant increase in resistance against brown rot (Poria placenta fungi) in the treated specimens, in contrast to the control group. Thus, impregnation of wood with spent engine oil makes it possible to increase wood resistance to water and biological degradation.

Wood impregnation in relation to its mechanisms and properties enhancement

“…The type of waxes can be divided into several categories, including natural waxes such as beeswax (Li et al 2020) and carnauba wax (Chen et al 2020); natural fossil waxes derived from petroleum or lignite such as paraffin (Esteves et al 2014;Jiang et al 2020) and montan wax; synthetic such as hydrocarbon or amide waxes (Scholz et al 2010a). Meanwhile, the different kinds of oils that can be utilized as impregnating agents include linseed oil (Chen et al 2020;Liu et al 2020), tung oil (Ahmed et al 2017;He et al 2019), hemp oil (Baar et al 2021), engine oil (Belchinskaya et al 2021), becker oil (Ahmed et al 2017), vegetable oil (Wei et al 2022), and other plant oil-based substances (Vasiliauskiene et al 2020).…”

“…Both active modification by cross-linking and passive modification by bulking are included in this process (Rowell andYoung 1981, Hill 2006). Hardwood and softwood have been impregnated with a variety of impregnating agents such as waxes and oils (Lesar and Humar 2011;Esteves et al 2014;Ahmed et al 2017;Belchinskaya et al 2021), thermosetting resins, including epoxy, phenol formaldehyde, urea formaldehyde, etc. (Furuno et al 2004;Gabrielli et al 2010;Zhao et al 2016;Biziks et al 2018;Schwarzkopf et al 2020;Wang and Zhao 2022), monomer/polymer, including methacrylate, acrylate, styrene, unsaturated polyester, followed by radiation or catalyst-thermal treatment (Chao et al 2003;Hadi et al 2013), noncyclic and cyclic anhydride (Li et al 2001;He et al 2020;Augustina et al 2021), as well as organic acid (Fang et al 2000;L'Hostis et al 2017;Grosse et al 2019;Lee et al 2020;Augustina et al 2022).…”

Surface Wettability Of Boron And Oil-Treated Wood

“…Findings similar to the ones described herein were reported by Demirel et al, (2018) on wood which had been treated with boric acid and epoxidized linseed and soybean oils. In addition, impregnation with waste engine oil clearly improves the hydrophobic properties of wood (Belchinskaya et al, 2021). Two possible reasons for the poor wettability are the high oil uptakes of wood that create water repellent surfaces, and thermal treatment.…”

Combined effects of linseed oil and heat treatment on the properties of cypress and maple wood Part 1: Water absorption, mechanical properties, and sound absorption capacity

“…Different impregnation materials can be used depending on whether it is intended for indoor or outdoor use (Hebisch et al 2020). The CCA salts, creosote oil, coal oil, and other oily compounds are exploited for outdoor use and especially on woods in constant contact with water, roadside sound barriers, bridges, railway sleepers, power transmission poles, and construction molds (Animpong et al 2017;Unnisa and Hassanpour 2017;Belchinskaya et al 2020Belchinskaya et al , 2021.…”