The effect of conventional drying temperature on preservative treatability of meranti wood

This research aims to optimizing drying conditions to improve preservative treatment throught different drying temperatures that affect the drying properties of Meranti wood. Drying curve and drying defects were evaluated during the drying process, and the effect of drying temperature on CuAz wood preservative absorption levels were also measured. Meranti wood cut it to a suitable size for drying specimen with a final dimension of 30 × 150×500 mm and then exposed to air drying and different drying temperature of 40C and 60C using an oven. After dried, the drying defect such as cupping was measured using ImageJ. Additionally, the sample were cut into 20×20×110 mm for preservative treatment by soaking the sample into CuAz solution for 20 min and the preservative retention was calculated. Results in term of duration, cupping, relationship between MC & retention, retention vs temperature. The 60°C oven-drying temperature achieves the target moisture content for Meranti wood in the shortest drying time compared to the other temperatures. The higher heat drives faster moisture reduction. In preservative treatability, the high 60°C also temperature may open up wood structure, allowing much greater preservative penetration and retention, enabling much greater preservative fluid penetration into the wood.