Ethylene Glycol as a wood preservative

[Saildude]

Deadly to people also - I think the reason pets like EG is that it tastes sweet - I think I remember reading that many manufactures add a bitter taste agent to EG so it can't be drank.

[Frosty]

So they make it taste bad so you cant drink it?-- but its deadly anyway.

[Saildude]

I think there have been a lot of accidental poisonings for small kids and pets.

[Frosty]

How do you know it tastes sweet? and how do you know it was accidental?

Wood preservative is getting scarce (in Europe)--probably because of its alleged poisonous capabilities, however antifreeze EG is not available where I am either,- it barely drops below 26 degrees c

When the day comes we cant buy anything, what will we do.

[Lurvio]

From what I've heard, many of the kids poisonings happened because the dad stored some amount of the green stuff in soda bottles, that stuff and a familiar packing is a bad combo.

Lurvio

[Ilan Voyager]

The mono or poly ethyleneglycol is sweet because it has a glycol base which is a sugar. But it's a poisonous sugar which destroys the kidneys or disrupts the cellular function of any animal or vegetal, mono or poly cellular. In fact it kills everything, and many accidents have happened with children and pets (specially dogs who like sugar taste); it's well documented fact and MDS sheets will give information.So now in the antifreeze a bitter agent is added to make the antifreeze unpalatable.

On the other side the polypropilene glyco is not so poisonous and it's used as hygroscopic agent, for example in the pipe tobacco, but it won't disinfect the wood.

Ethylene glycol is used with a borate salt (generally a sodium octoborate) to get a triple effect: the ethylene glycol will kill everything even the fungus spores but it will evaporate, the borate salt wich is a non-volatile mineral will remain in the wood for definitive protection, the hygroscopic action of the ethylene glycol will help the borate salt to migrate further into the wood by osmosis.
A curcuma test will show the degree of penetration of the borate into the wood.

A wood treated with the ethylene glycol-borate mix cannot be "epoxified" as the adhesion is too poor. Same thing with the antifreeze-borate mix as the antifreeze containsproducts (metallic salts and others) to improve the anti corrosion effect which impedes the adhesion of the epoxy.

The "pure" monethylene glycol/water solution works very well to disinfect wood (the effect won't last) and improve gluing. The epoxy resin is applied after a complete drying of the treated wood.
I do not think that the adhesion improvement comes from giving a mechanical key ("opening the pores") but by a better chemical and molecular bond between the cellulose (also a sugar)/lignine (with a lot of phenols) of the wood and the epoxy resin which is a phenol derivate.
(Pierre Gilles de Gennes made the ground breaking research on the subject of adhesion, and you will find on Internet excellent resumes on the physics of adhesion)
Forest Products Laboratory http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/ has a lot of excellent papers about adhesion of glues (with a good corpus about epoxies) on wood and many other wood related subjects, like preservatives (and borates). A search in the index is worth...
There also excellent papers in French and German.

Frosty: Antifreeze is used in engines not only for protecting for freezing, but also for improving the heat capacity of the cooling medium (boiling will occur at 127 Celsius instead of 100) and to protect the engine components from corrosion, plus lubricant for the pump's seals, anti foam agents and detergents.

The use of pure water (and worst: tap water) is the best way to kill a modern engine (and even the old ones). It will overheat as the radiator is sized for anti freezing high boiling temp. Also the electrolytic corrosion of the engine, composed of different metals (steel, iron, aluminum and copper alloys) will destroy first the aluminum components. Add a good sludge of oxides and salts obstructing the radiator and the picture is almost complete...

[Frosty]

Originally Posted by Ilan Voyager;

Frosty: Antifreeze is used in engines not only for protecting for freezing, but also for improving the heat capacity of the cooling medium (boiling will occur at 127 Celsius instead of 100) and to protect the engine components from corrosion, plus lubricant for the pump's seals, anti foam agents and detergents.

The use of pure water (and worst: tap water) is the best way to kill a modern engine (and even the old ones). It will overheat as the radiator is sized for anti freezing high boiling temp. Also the electrolytic corrosion of the engine, composed of different metals (steel, iron, aluminum and copper alloys) will destroy first the aluminum components. Add a good sludge of oxides and salts obstructing the radiator and the picture is almost complete...

Yeah --kinda-- some engines maybe depends on the pressure of the rad cap, lubricates water pump, not really they still wear out, probably more due to improvements in pump design. I use water with a bit of diesel in it

Shock horror gasp,--

You wont remember the Triumph stag engine I suppose but hey we are going way too far off topic here.

[TeddyDiver]

Thanks Ilian of good info. A couple of remarks thou..

Originally Posted by Ilan Voyager

Frosty: Antifreeze is used in engines not only for protecting for freezing, but also for improving the heat capacity of the cooling medium (boiling will occur at 127 Celsius instead of 100) ....

The use of pure water (and worst: tap water) is the best way to kill a modern engine (and even the old ones). It will overheat as the radiator is sized for anti freezing high boiling temp...

The heat capasity of Ethylene glycol is actually worse and it's not recommended to use over 50% solutions. Otherwise engine will die for sure. What radiators are designed for in this regard is the higher temperatures and flow not size..
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/et...col-d_146.html

[Ilan Voyager]

I never wrote about using a 100% ethylene glycol in a engine, that would be stupid. I wrote antifreeze which is a solution of water and ethylene glycol.

Radiator (and heat exchangers for boats) are sized on the following requisites:
-Quantity of heat to dissipate (directly linked with the HP)
-Acceptable general temp of the coolant inside the engine: 95° Celsius in gas engines, 85° Celsius in Diesel engines. Temp may be greater in some local points, so the interest of high boiling coolant medium or you can have vapor bubbles in the system.
-Caloric capacity of the coolant fluid.
-materials of the engine and the radiator.
-efficiency circulation losses of the circuit. (thermostat, design of the tubing in the radiator etc...)
-Plus some other details.
-Temperature of the air or water.
That gives you the size of the radiator or heat exchanger. A cooling system made in aluminum or 10% cupro nickel, pressurized, with a high ebullition temp coolant is far smaller than an ordinary water radiator as you can work as hot as possible without risk of vapor bubbles...The size is a direct consequence of the flow and coolant medium (antifreeze...but you can use also an oil, it has been done also)

For sure the radiator itself and the tubing has to be designed to withstand the higher temps and pressure. It's evident. I've sized and built a few heat exchangers...

Frosty; most -modern- engines rely heavily on the antifreeze properties for cooling. And with "pure" water remains the problem of the electrolytic corrosion; generally the aluminum cases of the pump and the thermostat are the first to fail.
In all aluminum engines is the engine itself...

[Frosty]

Originally Posted by Ilan Voyager

I never wrote about using a 100% ethylene glycol in a engine, that would be stupid. I wrote antifreeze which is a solution of water and ethylene glycol.

Radiator (and heat exchangers for boats) are sized on the following requisites:
-Quantity of heat to dissipate (directly linked with the HP)
-Acceptable general temp of the coolant inside the engine: 95° Celsius in gas engines, 85° Celsius in Diesel engines. Temp may be greater in some local points, so the interest of high boiling coolant medium or you can have vapor bubbles in the system.
-Caloric capacity of the coolant fluid.
-materials of the engine and the radiator.
-efficiency circulation losses of the circuit. (thermostat, design of the tubing in the radiator etc...)
-Plus some other details.
-Temperature of the air or water.
That gives you the size of the radiator or heat exchanger. A cooling system made in aluminum or 10% cupro nickel, pressurized, with a high ebullition temp coolant is far smaller than an ordinary water radiator as you can work as hot as possible without risk of vapor bubbles...The size is a direct consequence of the flow and coolant medium (antifreeze...but you can use also an oil, it has been done also)

For sure the radiator itself and the tubing has to be designed to withstand the higher temps and pressure. It's evident. I've sized and built a few heat exchangers...

Frosty; most -modern- engines rely heavily on the antifreeze properties for cooling. And with "pure" water remains the problem of the electrolytic corrosion; generally the aluminum cases of the pump and the thermostat are the first to fail.
In all aluminum engines is the engine itself...

So you saying that adding Eg will make the 'coolant mix' less electrolytic than water itself.

[Ilan Voyager]

No! the EG has not anti corrosion properties.

It's the antifreeze made for cooling engines that has the additives (silicates, phosphates and others) for the corrosion inhibition purpose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifreeze.

Coming back to borate salts for preserving wood , I can say that works pretty well. A deposit of 57 grams/square meter makes the wood totally unpalatable to Formosan termites, the worst ones...

I built my house 10 years ago with a cheap pine treated with borates. Not insect nor fungus have attacked the wood. I do a survey every six months as I live in a humid tropical climate where any piece of non treated wood (except 2 species) is destroyed in the following year by the termites, plus fungus (dry rot) and a big bunch of wood borers.

The solution EG/borates works very well for rot fungus on old classic boats as it penetrates deeply in "wet" wood. Works also on any porous wood (the oily woods repels waterborne products, and the very dense like zapote or moabi do not absorb any treatment).