Webinar presented by Roger Meder, CSIRO Agriculture Flagship, Wednesday 17th September, 2014.
Pyrethroid preservatives such as permethrin and bifenthrin are approved for H2F envelope treatment of timber framing south of the Tropic of Capricorn. The current method for the analysis of retention (AS/NZS 1605.3:2006) requires an envelope sample to be taken, the active compounds extracted and then analysed by either gas chromatography (GC) or liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (LCMS).
Analysis can also be a lengthy process, during which time the mill is unaware of any under- or over-treatment that may be occurring. An in-mill, real-time, low-cost method for determining the retention of the active compound would provide tighter control during production.
This webinar will discuss the results of an FWPA funded Project (PNB204-1011), and some more recent developments that are ongoing.
Near infrared spectroscopy of permethrin and bifenthrin treated radiata pine has been used to develop calibration models to predict the active retention in unknown samples. Calibrations were developed for both a laboratory NIR and a portable NIR using laboratory-prepared calibration samples at a range of target retention levels.
Correlations were established between the actual retention and NIR-predicted retention for both bifenthrin and permethrin. These calibrations were then used for prediction of retention levels in run-of-mill samples.
Presenter:
Roger Meder completed his PhD at Massey University (NZ) in the field of physics, specifically magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy.
He spent 16 years at the NZ Forest Research Institute where he first started using IR, NIR and NMR spectra to predict wood quality in order to provide rapid non-destructive measurement of end-use performance.
Roger is currently Group Leader of the Forest Genetics, Genomics and Phenomics group within CSIRO Agriculture Flagship, which is located in Brisbane and Canberra.
