In recent years, with the development of the coating industry and the increasing awareness of environmental protection, the modification of waterborne wood coatings has become the focus of research. Generally, the system composed of silica sol modification and UV curing can make up for the defects of poor mechanical properties, low hardness, and slow curing speeds of waterborne wood coatings. Herein, we used silica sol-reinforced UV-curable waterborne acrylic wood coatings and tested the related physical properties of the coatings. FT-IR analysis showed that the Si-O-Si bond appeared, indicating that the silica sol was successfully grafted onto the waterborne acrylic molecular chain. The results showed that the mechanical properties of the UV-curable waterborne acrylic wood coating film reached their optimum when the content of silica sol was 1 wt%, the number of UV lamps was 3, and the drying time was 20 min. The corresponding values for wear resistance, hardness, adhesion, and impact strength were 0.106 g (high level), grade 3, and 90 kg·cm, respectively. However, when the content of silica sol is greater than 1 wt%, the related physical properties of the coatings will decrease. The results showed that the gloss of the coating decreased with increasing silica sol content. When the silica sol content was 2 wt%–6 wt%, the coating showed a matte gloss. This present work shows that the modification process is simple, controlled, inexpensive, and meets the demand for UV-curable waterborne acrylic wood coatings in daily life.

As one of the key products of the whole wood custom home, the study of environmental protection coating technology for wood wallboard has practical significance. Waterborne acrylic acid (WAA), as an important research object of environmentally friendly coatings, has been studied mainly in the area of modification. However, there is less research on its application to the field of wood wallboard. Herein, we developed a facile strategy to prepare WAA resin coatings with excellent performance using SiO₂ nanoparticles as modifiers and explored the feasibility of wood wallboard. In this work, a simple mechanical compounding method was used to modify the WAA resin coatings by adding nano-SiO₂, aiming to improve their physicochemical properties such as hardness and abrasion resistance while maintaining gloss. It was found that nano-SiO₂ showed different effects on the viscosity, gloss, adhesion, and abrasion resistance of WAA resin coating. The combined performance results showed that the wood wallboard finishes exhibit excellent performance when the modifier nano-SiO₂ was added at 1 wt% in the WAA resin coating. This present work shows that the nano-SiO₂-modified WAA resin coating for wood wallboard has a broad application prospect.

Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata (Lamb.) Hook.) has been an important afforestation species in northeast China. It has obvious defects of buckling and cracking easily, which are caused by its chemical components. Trametes versicolor (L.) Lloyd, a white-rot fungus, can decompose the cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin in the wood. White-rot fungus was used to biologically degrade Chinese fir wood. The effects of different degradation time on the Chinese fir wood’s mechanical properties, micromorphology, chemical components, and crystallinity were studied. The results showed that the heartwood of Chinese fir was more durable than the sapwood and the durability class of Chinese fir was III. Trametes versicolor (L.) Lloyd had a greater influence on the mechanical properties (especially with respect to the modulus of elasticity (MOE)) for the sapwood. Trametes versicolor (L.) Lloyd degraded Chinese fir and colonized the lumen of various wood cell types in Chinese fir, penetrated cell walls via pits, caused erosion troughs and bore holes, and removed all cell layers. The ability of white-rot fungus to change the chemical composition mass fraction for Chinese fir was: hemicellulose > lignin > cellulose. The durability of the chemical compositions was: lignin > cellulose > hemicellulose. The crystallinity of the cellulose decreased and the mean size of the ordered (crystalline) domains increased after being treated by white-rot fungus.

A new prepolymer was developed for modulating UV oriental lacquer ink and the feasibility of using it as a raw material for UV spray painting was explored.