Acetylation is the process we use to enhance the properties of wood. In simple terms, it ‘pickles’ the wood, reducing how much water the cells in the wood can absorb. It does this without adding toxic chemicals to the final product, but by boosting the concentration of ‘acetyl groups’ – which are already found naturally in trees and their wood.
More specifically, our process uses acetic anhydride to change hydroxyl groups (which like water) into acetyl groups (which don’t like water), resulting in improved performance characteristics without introducing harmful or environmentally unfriendly additives.
