Manufactured by Accsys Technologies, Accoya is one of the most advanced wood products on the market today. Through a process called acetylation, Accoya is manufactured using wood modification technology to create a superior quality product with outstanding levels of performance, stability, and durability. All Accoya wood is sustainably sourced and the finished result is a non-toxic product offering the same aesthetic appeal of tropical hardwoods.
Durability
Cellulose is a major structural ingredient of wood but it is also a major food source for several different insects and decay fungi. Rot causes wood to degrade – particularly when it is used outdoors and exposed to moisture – limiting its service life. Thanks to the acetylation technology pioneered by Accsys Technologies, Accoya wood offers you an environmentally compatible, durable wood that can be used with confidence in outdoor applications and will last for at least 50 years above ground or 25 years in-ground or freshwater contact.
Natural durability is known to be a variable and inconsistent property. The properties of every batch of Accoya wood on the other hand, are analyzed by standard scientific measurements after modification, enabling its durability to at least match and even exceed the performance of nature’s most durable species.
Dimensional Stability
The degree to which a material maintains its original dimensions when subjected to environmental changes. With many materials, temperature and humidity are critical factors. In the case of wood, swelling in damp or wet conditions and shrinkage in dry, hot conditions can have unwelcome implications; structures may become unstable.
Accoya wood’s superior dimensional stability matches or exceeds all the best species in the world, including Teak, Sapele, Iroko and Western Red Cedar in both radial and tangential directions (thickness and width). This means that it has minimal swell and shrinkage and may be confidently used in applications where it will encounter varying moisture conditions – even in freshwater immersion. Accoya´s acetylated wood has been tested over prolonged periods in all types of weathering conditions – above ground, below ground, and in freshwater – and has been proven to withstand even the toughest and most challenging of environments.
Coatings
Accoya® wood’s superior coatings performance is primarily due to its outstanding dimensional and UV stability. This effectively means that major coating systems can be used on Accoya® with significantly improved performance.
Dimensionally stable wood improves coatings life as paints and other film-forming coatings are not subjected to severe stretch and shrink cycles. In the end, the result is decreased maintenance frequency, resulting in:
- Less time spent maintaining the wood
- Less money spent on coatings
- Less coating used overall during the service life of the wood
- Less impact on the environment
Accoya wood has superior resistance to UV degradation, with extensive tests demonstrating that the natural beauty of the wood lasts longer in even the severest exposed conditions. UV resistance of wood improves the life of any coating by providing a sound coating substrate. It also allows for a wider range of feasible color options. Accoya works well with all known coatings systems.
Quality and ease of use
Wood is a natural material and each piece is unique. This is partly what makes it so aesthetically pleasing and yet it can be a source of frustration and uncertainty when looking for guaranteed performance quality. However, with Accoya wood, you can be sure of its consistent quality, durability, and dimensional stability.
- Consistent quality throughout
Because Accoya wood is modified all the way through, rather than just at the surface, when it is cut, planed or jointed there are no exposed unprotected surfaces in any dimension, removing the need to apply additional chemical preservatives - Excellent machinability & ease of fixing
Accoya wood is easy to machine and process manually, creating no challenges for product manufacturers and end-users. It can be fixed in the same way as other commonly used softwood species, but it is strongly recommended to use corrosion-resistant fixings due to the acid contents in most durable woods - Retained strength & hardness
The manufacturing process does not compromise the wood’s strength. In fact, the hardness of the wood is increased and because Accoya wood has a high strength to weight ratio, it is suitable for challenging applications - Naturally beautiful wood
Last but not least, Accoya wood is naturally beautiful. It is comparable in color to the original source species so that you can achieve a natural look in your projects if you wish or it may be easily coated in a wide range of color finishes
Sustainability
Accoya® wood for the Future
- By significantly enhancing the durability and dimensional stability of fast-growing and abundantly available certified wood species, Accoya wood provides compelling environmental advantages over slow-growing hardwoods, woods treated with toxic chemicals and non-renewable carbon-intensive materials such as plastics, metals, and concrete
- The responsible procurement of wood plays a fundamental role in positioning Accoya as an environmentally compatible product. All Accoya wood is produced from well managed sustainable sources including FSC®, PEFC™, and other regionally certified woods
- Only abundantly available, fast-growing source species such as Radiata pine are used to create Accoya. The use of wood species that produce larger volumes of wood over the same time span for the same area of land offers obvious environmental advantages
- The Accoya wood manufacturing process is non-toxic and adds nothing to the wood that does not already naturally occur in it
- The enhanced durability of acetylated wood facilitates a lifespan of at least 50 years above ground and 25 years in ground, improving carbon sequestration potential and lowering lifetime material consumption versus other materials
- Dimensional stability and improved hardness = lower maintenance frequency and therefore less coating use and waste over the product’s lifetime
- Superior thermal insulation (compared to other durable wood species) which provides energy conservation advantages when used in applications such as window frames and doors
- Fully reusable and recyclable (reuse is recommended but it may be safely incinerated for bio-energy)
