Lately, more and more environmentally and people friendly types of wood protection are being developed. One of those friendly alternatives is thermal modification of wood. One of the biggest disadvantages of thermal modification is deterioration of mechanical properties. Therefore, prior to thermal modification we impregnated wood with compounds bicine and tricine to see if this can preserve resistance of thermally modified wood to water and at the same time improve its mechanical properties. We impregnated and thermally modificated spruce and beech samples, and then tested their properties. We tested sorption properties, capillary water absorption and contact angle of water. We also determined mechanical properties, namely bending strength, compressive strength and hardness. The results showed that the impregnation of wood with these compounds prior to thermal modification increases moisture content of modified wood and absorption of capillary water. Mechanical properties are improved in most cases.
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