Wood is one of the most widely used materials in last 20 years by society in many applications, with a considerable proportion of this material coming from forest plantations. Plantations usually produce timber with reduced strength properties and low natural durability. On the other hand, nanotechnology applications have the potential to increase wood properties. Likewise, nanotechnology cannot only be applied to wood, but also can be related to many substances, for example additives to paints or wood coating. In this study, silver nanoparticles and titanium dioxide were incorporated to some commercial timber species from Costa Rica as well as on wood coatings, for increasing wood durability and wood coating performance. Fungal resistance tests showed that the wood durability increased in wood treated with silver nanoparticles. Besides, the variation of colour change as measured by the ∆E*, showed differences between the use of coating with titanium oxide nanoparticles and by using coating without this component. The highest colour change or the higher values in ∆E* are given when the coating does not present titanium nanoparticles.

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