The feature of color alteration of bleached oak, beech, and black locust surfaces during artificial xenon radiation

Abstract

In Europe, large quantities of oak wood are available and industrial partners showed interest in bleached oak as oak's reinterpretation in order to reintroduce it on the design furniture market. In the present work besides oak two further wood species beech and black locust were also examined in comparison. Bleaching of beech has a relative well-established technique and can be done with good results with H₂O₂, contrary to oak where bleaching with the same agent results in a spotty discoloration of the surface with high-greenish incrust. A second substance is suggested to be used, to achieve the same significant bleaching effect for oak and black locust as for beech. As bleached wood surfaces are also subject to color changes due to sun radiation, bleached samples of the three wood species were exposed to artificial xenon radiation and their behavior was investigated, with focus on the influence of the type of application. Expecting industrial-scale application the possible influence of application type on the measure of total color change was also investigated. The feature of color development was described as exponential function of time for all three wood species and all three application methods.

Keywords:

• Bleaching
• H₂O₂
• xenon radiation
• different application techniques
• color stability

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank for the support gained from TÁMOP 4.2.1.B-09/1/KONV-2010-0006 “Intellectual, organizational and R&D infrastructure development at the University of West Hungary”.