In the last decade, interest in the development of wood modification systems has increased in Europe. Alongside several industrial initiatives for heat treatments, there have also been scaling up and pilot plant projects for chemical wood modification. Between 2000-03, the European Commission funded the "Thematic Network on Wood Modification". This paper features a re-evaluation of work undertaken within that project, assessing the performance of acetylated radiate pine. This re-evaluation comes at a time when acetylated radiate pine is due to be commercially launched. This corresponded with one of the key decisions of the Network, in that modified wood should be regarded as a new wood species, and tested accordingly, with particular emphasis on biological durability and dimensional stability.

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