Effects of heat treatment on water-soluble extractives and color changes of merbau heartwood

Abstract

Merbau is widely used for indoor finishing, outdoor constructions, and furniture. However, it has a disadvantage in some applications in that part of its extractives is water-soluble and can be readily leached out to stain adjacent materials. This study examined whether heat treatment could overcome the above-mentioned problem. Effects of the treatment temperature and time on water-soluble extractives and color changes of merbau heartwood were studied. CIELAB ΔL *, Δa *,Δb *, and ΔE * parameters and absorbance spectra were used to evaluate color change and water-soluble extractive solutions, respectively. The results show that heat treatment is an efficient technique to overcome the problem caused by water-soluble extractives of merbau heartwood. Surface color of the treated samples tends to become darker and color of the extractive solution becomes fading to transparent when the treatment temperature and time increased. The absorbance of UV light decreases in intensity and the dominant absorption peak appears around 350 nm when the treatment temperature and time increase. The optimized parameters of treatment temperature and time are 170 °C and 4 h. Modulus of rupture and modulus of elasticity of the heat treated samples under the optimized parameters decrease by 29.6 and 12.9 %, respectively, compared with those of the untreated samples.