Publication by Assira Keralta on non-biocidal wood preservation systems based on dairy coproducts and citric acid!

Congratulations to Assira Keralta, Johannes Karthäuser, Lucy Martin, Jérémy Winninger, Julien Chamberland, Marie-Josée Dumont, Véronic Landry, and Holger Militz on the publication of their article “Non-biocidal wood preservative systems based on dairy coproducts and citric acid” in the journal International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation!

This article investigates a non-biocidal wood preservation method based on in situ polyesterification using citric acid and lactose-rich dairy coproducts. Scots pine and aspen samples were impregnated and then thermally cured to form a polymer network within the wood matrix. The results show a strong improvement in resistance to fungal degradation, with mass losses below 5%, compared to 40–60% for untreated wood. The analyses confirm the formation of stable ester bonds and a protection mechanism linked to reduced water uptake and limited enzymatic access. This approach also valorizes dairy by-products within a circular economy framework.

The authors thank the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC; ALLRP 588511–2023, ALLRP 571482-21) and the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies (FRQNT; 2023-NOVA-315224) for their financial support.

They also express their gratitude to Marco Steffens and the team at DMK Deutsches Milchkontor GmbH (Zeven, Germany) for providing the dairy coproducts and associated technical data, as well as to Emmanuel Oluwatimileyin Oyewusi (University of Göttingen) for his assistance with measurements after fungal exposure.

Read the full article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ibiod.2026.106396