A New Wood Preserving Process

Examining the criteria for an ideal wood preservative treatment suggested the idea of a dry preservative dissolved in a completely recoverable carrier–a carrier which was a gas under ordinary conditions and a liquid under pressure. After four years, the Koppers Company has developed the Cellon treatment process. Pentachlorophenol dissolved in liquified gas is forced deep into the wood fibers during a pressure-treating cycle; when the pressure is released, the carrier readily vaporizes, leaving crystalline pentachlorophenol in the fibers. A final vacuum treatment recovers the liquified vapors and leaves the wood free of solvent. This treatment meets the necessary standards for permanence and effectiveness. In addition, wood treated in this way is paintable, water repellent, unchanged in dimension, odorless, gluable, and suffers no loss of strength. The process also offers the advantages that the treated lumber can be machined with ordinary tools and is as workable as untreated wood; the natural color of the wood remains, and it is clean and dry after treatment, eliminating post-processing. Many refractory species, not previously penetrable with conventional preservatives, can be treated with this new process because of the low viscosity of the solution. The new process is competitive in price with other water repellent penta treatments and kiln-dried water-borne preservative treatments. It can create new uses for wood in housing, military crating, laminating, and sandwich construction.

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