Wood is a popular raw building material, and will be for a long time. The benefits of using wood in building practices are well known. Wood itself is a renewable resource, has natural insulation properties, captures carbon from the air, is relatively lightweight, and has clear aesthetic advantages over other building materials. This being said, wood, especially outdoors, has clear disadvantages compared other building materials such as concrete, since wood is susceptible to decay resulting from cell wall degradation by fungal degradation,4 weathering conditions like UV-damage,5 and insect infestation. Furthermore, maintaining wood is a time-consuming task consisting of sanding and de-greasing, as well as extensive cleaning.
Bio-based systems account for only a small part of the wood-protection industry. With sustainability of greater importance for consumers and businesses today, the demand for green solutions for traditional problems has been steadily growing in multiple markets. In the wood protection market, sustainable innovation has resulted in a range of available bio-based products. Bio-based means based on a biological compound, however, this term does not say anything about the quantity of the biological compound present in the final product.