Comfy Frog Furniture are now supplying Accoya products throughout Thailand.  Here is a breif synopsis about Accoya, it's products and how they work.

Wood without compromise

Accoya^® is the world’s leading high technology wood. Created from sustainably sourced softwood, Accoya^® wood matches or exceeds the durability, stability and beauty of the very best tropical hardwoods.

The Accoya^® wood production process takes sustainably-sourced, fast growing softwood and, in a non toxic process that ‘enables nature’, creates a new durable, stable and beautiful product – that has the very best environmental credentials.

A new world of high performance, sustainable, low maintenance products – including windows, doors, decking, cladding and glulam structural beams – is opened up by Accoya wood. The exceptional properties of durability, stability, strength and beauty have even led to Accoya wood being used as the main construction material in a heavy traffic road bridge with a highly original design. 

Accoya is helping to protect the world’s precious hardwood resources and is guaranteed for 50 years in exterior use and 25 years when used in the ground. This long life also provides an added benefit – helping to reduce carbon emissions.

Accoya^® wood creates beautiful and sustainable possibilities, even in demanding applications

The Future is Wood

Wood is good. The possibilities it offers can be seen wherever we look: as sturdy decks or decorative trims, winter fuel or stylish furniture, musical instruments or industrial structures, window frames or walking sticks. Wood is a material that is both aesthetically appealing and endlessly practical. It is also our only naturally renewable construction resource.

The natural beauty and versatility of wood are fundamental to its universal popularity. When properties such as high strength, light weight and good insulation are required, wood becomes the ideal choice for many applications. Unfortunately, these compelling attributes are offset by the susceptibility of many wood species to deterioration, particularly when used outdoors.

Historically, the use of inherently durable tropical hardwoods and the application of toxic chemicals to non-durable wood have provided partial solutions to the problem of durability. However, the wood’s dimensional stability is not improved and toxins create a disposal problem. If an alternative existed which was sourced from sustainable forests, had zero toxicity and provided dimensional stability and durability that exceeded even the best tropical woods, a perfect material would have been found.

Accoya® wood is the world leading solution with properties that match those of the best tropical hardwood.  Accoya® is manufactured using a non-toxic treatment and uses fast growing timber from sustainable sources. In fact, it may seem too good to be true but Accoya® is proven and available today.

Outstanding Performance

Extensive laboratory and field testing by leading institutes around the world (including in New Zealand, USA, UK, Sweden, Malaysia, Indonesia, Russia, the Netherlands and Japan) has shown the performance of acetylated wood to be extremely reliable.

Accoya^® wood has been thoroughly tested for dimensional stability, durability, UV resistance, paint retention and in-ground conditions to ensure optimal performance. Indeed, it is so reliable that for many years it has been – and continues to be – used by scientists as the benchmark against which other treatments and modifications are measured.

DIMENSIONAL STABILITY

- Swelling and shrinkage reduced by 75% or more
- Doors and windows open effortlessly year round
- Paints and varnishes last 3 or 4 times longer,
  greatly reducing maintenance costs

CLASS 1 DURABILITY

- The most durable wood possible
- More durable than teak and the world’s other
  most durable woods
- Perfect for outdoor use

LONG LASTING

- Lasting at least 50 years above ground and
  25 years in ground

ROT & INSECT BARRIER

- Accoya® wood is indigestible to insects and microorganisms
  and is therefore more resistant to decay
- Barrier to wood-destroying fungi
- Accoya® wood is virtually rot-proof

PERFECT FOR COATING

- Easier to coat: less preparation and sanding between
  coatings required
- Improved dimensional stability and UV resistance
  improves the life of coatings
- Perfect for transparent, translucent and opaque coatings

NATURALLY BEAUTIFUL WOOD

- The process does not compromise the wood’s natural
  beauty

NATURALLY INSULATING

- Accoya® wood offers improved thermal insulation
  in comparison with commonly used wood species
- Accoya® wood is ideal for applications where energy
  conservation is important

NON-TOXIC

- Accoya® wood is non-toxic, protecting the
  environment from the harmful effects of poisons leaching
  out of typical wood treatment
- Accoya® wood may be safely reused and recycled

FROM SUSTAINABLE SOURCES

- Sustainably sourced, including from FSC, PEFC and
  other regionally certified woods
- Naturally renewable

UV RESISTANT

- Accoya® wood has superior resistance to UV
  degradation when translucent coated and its natural
  appearance lasts longer
- Accoya® wood is the ultimate substrate and coating
  life is increased

RETAINED STRENGTH & HARDNESS

- The process does not compromise the wood’s strength
- Hardness is increased
- High strength to weight ratio, making it suitable for
  challenging applications

100% RECYCLABLE

- Fully reusable and recyclable
- Reuse is recommended but Accoya® wood may be
  safely incinerated for bio-energy or composted

CONSISTENT QUALITY THROUGHOUT

- Consistent, measurable modification quality from
  surface to core
- No need to apply chemical preservatives when cut or
  planed

MACHINABILITY

- Accoya® wood is easy to machine and process
  manually, creating no challenges for product
  manufacturers and end users

CONSISTENT SUPPLY

- Produced from abundantly available, fast-growing sources
  species such as Radiata Pine.

Creating the World’s Leading High Technology Wood

The technology behind Accoya^® wood is based on acetylation, a process that has been studied by scientists around the world for more than 75 years. This method of improving wood has been proven to deliver such superior performance that it has long been used as the “gold standard” against which other methods are measured.

The physical properties of any material are determined by its chemical structure. Wood contains an abundance of chemical groups called “free hydroxyls” (represented as OH in the picture). Free hydroxyl groups adsorb and release water according to changes in the climatic conditions to which the wood is exposed. This is the main reason why wood swells and shrinks. It is also believed that the digestion of wood by enzymes initiates at the free hydroxyl sites – which is one of the principal reasons why wood is prone to decay.

Acetylation effectively changes the free hydroxyls within the wood into acetyl groups. This is done by reacting the wood with acetic anhydride, which comes from acetic acid (known as vinegar when in its dilute form). When the free hydroxyl group is transformed to an acetyl group, the ability of the wood to absorb water is greatly reduced, rendering the wood more dimensionally stable and, because it is no longer digestible, extremely durable