Crystalline ultrastructural features

Wood has many excellent mechanical properties that result from its exceptional combination of microstructural, ultrastructural, and molecular features. The main drawback is its dimensional instability in the presence of moisture. One main reason for modifying wood chemically is to reduce this instability. Other chemical treatments of wood reach the crystalline region of cellulosic microfibrils, destroying the crystalline structure, thus eliminating most of the composite structure of wood. The resulting material does not have any of the characteristic properties of wood but it may be provided with thermoplasticity. A chemical treatment of wood as defined here excludes such radical modifications. We refer to a chemical treatment that may reduce some defects relative to wood utilization and enhance its properties while keeping the bulk of the superior mechanical properties of wood. 

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