Protein Borates as Non-Toxic, Long-Term, Wide-Spectrum, Ground-Contact Wood Preservatives

Abstract

Wood preservatives based on protein borates and in particular albumin borate greatly retarded the leaching of boron from treated timber. Accelerated biological tests indicated that boric acid partially fixed to timber by formation of a salt with albumin and other proteins which are then insolubilised by heat-induced coagulation can yield durability comparable to that obtained with CCA wood preservatives. The results of the biological tests show that protein borates, and particularly albumin borate, can be classified as long-term, wide-spectrum, ground-contact, heavy-duty wood preservatives, and are only composed of boric acid, a non-toxic to mammals biocide and of a non-toxic, natural, sometimes waste material, namely a protein. Investigation of the chemical mechanisms of boric acid fixation by the protein indicated that both acid-base salt formation occurs, as well as the further formation at increasing boric acid proportions of additional boric acid/protein complexes. The mechanism is hence only one of partially reversible rather than totally irreversible fixation of boron, leaving at all times small amounts of boron free to exercise its antifungal activity, but drastically diminishing its tendency to leach and greatly retarding its leaching. Boric acid leaching as a function of exposure time appears to tend to an equilibrium value which is different for each type of protein used and differs in the case of treated timber from that obtained by just leaching of the protein borate coagulum.