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Wood is a very aesthetically pleasing and environmentally friendly material that can be used both indoors and outdoors. Many research teams are now paying closer attention to polymer modification using furfuryl alcohol or biochar because of its potential for commercial applications. It is anticipated that this kind of material will be long-lasting and maintain its mechanical properties over time. In this paper, spruce wood was modified by a furfuryl alcohol solution enriched by biochar using vacuum infiltration. Therefore, the purpose of this work was to investigate whether spruce wood was suitable for this treatment and to evaluate the effects of thermal degradation properties on prepared composite. Thermogravimetric analysis of raw wood (W), furfurylated wood (FW), and biochar-furfurylated wood bio-composite (BFW) reveals significant differences in its thermal stability. Wood exhibits the lowest thermal stability due to its composition. BFW showed higher thermal stability than wood. FW decomposes similarly to BFW but shows higher mass loss at low temperatures. The obtained results proved increasing two key fire characteristics (decrease of effective heat of combustion and carbon monoxide yield) of BFW in comparison with pristine spruce wood.

Transparent wood includes a group of composite materials consisting of a renewable component (various wood species) and a refractive-matching index polymer (petroleum or bio-based) with a wide range of applications. There are various types of polymers used for transparent wood preparation Due to their favourable optical, mechanical, and carbon-storing properties, transparent wood is ideal for use in, e.g., the automobile industry, construction, packaging, or electronics. In this study, acrylic-based transparent wood was prepared by deactivating chromophore groups in natural basswood (Tilia cordata, L.), followed by a subsequent vacuum-assisted 2-hydroxyethyl-methacrylate polymer infiltration. Fire characteristics, UV and biological resistance of this wood-polymer system were investigated. Transparent wood prepared for this study shows high resistance to wood decay fungi. Fire performance test shows higher resistance to initiation (higher time to ignition and critical heat flux)compared to natural wood and lower yields of carbon monoxide. When exposed to UV irradiation, colour, and transmittance change intensively only in the first hours of exposure, then only very gradually. On the other hand, transparent wood shows higher values of heat release rate and derived parameters.

Fire retardants, although can impart fire-safety in polymeric composites, are detrimental to the mechanical properties. Biochar can be used, in conjunction with fire retardants, to create a balance between fire-safety and mechanical performance. It is possible to thermally dope fire retardants into the pores of biochar to make it functionalised. Thus, the current work is intended in identifying a composite having the combination of the most desirable fire retardant, bioplastic, and a suitable processing method. A comparison was made between two fire retardants (lanosol and ammonium polyphosphate), bioplastics (wheat gluten and polyamide 11), and composite processing methods (compression and injection moulding). It was found that wheat gluten containing ammonium polyphosphate-doped biochar made by compression moulding had the best fire-safety properties with the lowest peak heat release rate (186 kW/m2), the highest fire performance index (0.6 m2s/kW), and the lowest fire growth index (1.6 kW/ms) with acceptable mechanical properties compared to the corresponding neat bioplastic. Thus, for gluten-based polymers, the use of ammonium polyphosphate thermally doped into biochar processed by compression moulding is recommended to both simultaneously improve fire-safety and conserve the mechanical strength of the resulting biocomposites.