As well known, wood represents a valuable natural composite material with a very large utilisation as solid wood or in wood based composite materials. Its qualities but also its defects as the dimensional instability, the susceptibility to biological attack, the anisotropy, are due to its complex structure. Research has demonstrated that the chemical modification of wood, meaning the involving of its main chemical components through their reactive alcoholic hydroxyl groups in chemical reactions with different chemical reagents, can be a new way to ameliorate the wood or wood composites but also to obtain new wood based materials. The chemical thermoplasticization of wood, studied theoretically and experimentally by the Japanese researchers as Matsuda, Mori, Morita, Nakano, Shiraishi, Ueda seems to be a very interesting possibility. The paper presents the results of our experiments concerning the chemical thermoplasticization of wood through oligoesterification and the obtaining and characterisation of some products based on this type of chemically modified wood. In fact the main goals of this stage of the researches were: - the obtaining and characterisation of the thermoplastic wood; - the study of the thermoformation possibilities for the thermally flowable material obtained as sawdust; - the evaluation of the possibilities to carry out this chemical modification process as a surface treatment for solid wood; - the evaluation of the water and biological resistance for the obtained products.

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