The evaluation of geothermal fluid in the wood preservation industry the province of Erzurum

Concerns about the safety and environmental impact of preservatives used to protect wood from biodegradation have increased in recent years, as has research to quantify preservative leaching and environmental accumulation. Hence, some studies have focus on identifying environmentally friendly and efficient wood preservatives. In this study, it was aimed to determine the efficiency of the environmentally friendly geothermal fluids as a wood preservative. Geothermal fluids obtained from the Erzurum which is a province of Turkey in the Eastern Anatolia Region. The non-concentrated geothermal water and concentrated geothermal water (via evaporation) in ratios of %50 and %75 were used to impregnation Scots pine specimens. The specimens were applied second impregnation with Zinc sulfate (ZnSO4). Mechanical and biological performance, leaching amount of boron (B) and thermal degradation of specimens were tested. One white rot fungus, Trametes versicolor L.Pilat (Mad-697), one brown rot fungi, Postia placenta (Fr.) M.J. Larsen & Lombard (Mad-698-R) were used for the decay tests. An ICP spectrometer was used as analytical instrument to determine of leaching amounts of boron. According to the results, impregnated samples with concentrated geothermal fluids showed highest resistance against both white and brown rot fungi and thermal properties slightly improve. In addition mechanical properties didn't change by impregnating. The leaching amount of boron decreased from specimens impregnated with zinc. The current study indicates that geothermal fluids can be used as environmentally friendly wood preservative against decay fungi.