Since cinnamaldehyde, the major constituent of leaf essential oil from Cinnamomum osmophloeum, has significant antifungal and antitermitic activities, it is worthy of understanding whether cinnamaldehyde has potential to be used as a natural preservative for improving the durability of wood. In this study, the fungi and termite resistance of cinnamaldehyde-treated wood (CTW) were evaluated according to CNS 6717 (2000) and AWPA E1-97 (1997) with slight modifications. The decay resistance of CTW after long period exposure to ambient conditions were also evaluated. Cryptomeria japonica sapwood were impregnated with cinnamaldehyde at 0.1, 0.6, 1.0 and 5.0% w/v, respectively. CTW specimens were exposed to the brown-rot fungus Laetiporus sulphureus and the white-rot fungus Lenzites betulina for 3 months and their weight losses were lower than 3.2%. The lowest weight loss (1.2%) was observed when wood impregnated with 5% cinnamaldehyde. In addition, results from the termite resistance test against Coptotermes formosanus for 30 days demonstrated that weight losses and mortalities of 1% CTW specimens were 0.2 and 65.3%, respectively, revealing that wood specimens treated with 1% cinnamaldehyde had an excellent action against C. formosanus. Furthermore, after exposure of CTW to ambient conditions for 1 year the weight losses of the specimens deteriorated by wood-rot fungi and by termite were lower than 4.6% and 1.4%, respectively, indicating that cinnamaldehyde treatment possesses a long-term effectiveness. Therefore, cinnamaldehyde has great potential to be applied as a new environmental benign wood preservative due to it can endow the wood with excellent durability and decay resistance against wood-rot fungi and termite.

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