Treatments
Available treatments for pallet and packaging timber include high temperature or gas fumigation for pests, kiln drying to remove moisture, cool air for drying, fire resistant intumescent pressure and brush treatments, preservative solutions against decay where food is not involved, painting or staining for identification, cleaning solutions and wax emulsion protection against surface moisture gain and stain (typical results of transparent wax emulsions on softwood specimens are illustrated here).
Benefits of wax emulsion spray after 2 years
exposure where specimen on left was untreated
Europe, North America and increasingly other countries all now have to take account of local or destination environmental regulations which now limit or exclude the use of some treatments for certain end uses, an example is copper chrome arsenate (CCA) which has been largely replaced in Europe and North America with a formula based on pressure treatment with one of the new copper quaternary compounds if timber is used in damp conditions.
When food, drink or pharmaceutical payloads are carried, pallet suppliers and users need to be wary of what may have been used and what is permitted. We have a range of Datasheets on these matters within this site and explain some of these treatments and their limitations. Members should call us if a subject they need is not listed and cannot be found by using QUICK SEARCH.
The new European REACH regulations to control chemical use, requires action by most wood pallet and packaging manufacturers who are termed Downstream Users and Datasheet 84i covering this will be uploaded shortly, in the meantime for a general background to the use of chemicals in non-food wood packaging, see Clause 1.3 of our Datasheet 84k or call us.
A PalletLink database is kept of commercial outlets and suppliers of these treatments in the UK and Europe but is not yet part of this website but members are welcome to e-mail us for suppliers needed.
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83k Termite protection for pallets are there any effective chemical treatments (PDF 19kb)85b ISPM 15 phytosanitary standard - possible future new treatments (PDF 35kb)85c Benefits of sulphuryl fluoride for fumigation (PDF 16kb)98a Flame retardancy for specialist requirements in warehouse storage (PDF 17kb)