The aim of this study was to enhance the water repellency of wood by a combined treatment of paraffin wax emulsion (PWE) impregnation and thermal modification. Two different treating procedures were used to modify the southern pine (pinus spp.). One is first PWE impregnation and then thermal modification, another is first thermal modification and then PWE impregnation. The treated samples were immersed in distilled water, and the water absorption property was tested by gravimetric method and time-domain nuclear magnetic resonance (TD-NMR). The results indicated that the combined treatment showed much better performance than the single treatment, especially the process of first PWE impregnation and then thermal modification. Moreover, the synergism between two procedures were also observed by TD-NMR and scanning electron microscope (SEM). It could be concluded that the PWE impregnation and thermal modification increase the hydrophobicity of wood through decreasing free water absorption and bound water absorption respectively. And the synergistic effect of the combined treatment was mainly due to the redistribution of the paraffin wax during the thermal modification.

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