KD Wood Tech Co., Ltd. launched its natural wood preservative 'Sioo' at the 2018 Seoul Kyunghyang Housing Fair held this past July. Sioo is based on petrified wood, which is composed of silicon dioxide—a component of sand obtained from nature that remains unchanged even after thousands or tens of thousands of years. Petrified wood is created by using a special technology to inject silicate—a construction material made of hydrated potassium silicate derived from sand as its base raw material—into the wood's cells. Because petrified wood does not rot or decay over long periods, it relieves the difficulties of wood maintenance while enabling the completion of an eco-friendly and beautiful home. Sioo, a natural wood preservative, is spreading to public facilities, buildings, commercial spaces, and homes primarily across Western Europe, where it is receiving a favorable response.
Most preservatives currently on the market are made from heavy metals. ACQ (Alkaline Copper Quaternary) and CuAz (Copper Azole) preservatives, whose use has been outlawed since 2003, have copper—a heavy metal—as their main ingredient. The millions of tons of micronized copper particles used annually to produce wood preservatives are seriously contaminating the earth's soil. Plants grown from contaminated soil come to contain copper particles, and organisms that consume copper-laden plants accumulate it in their bodies until death, becoming a cause of all sorts of diseases. In contrast, silicon—the main component of natural rock and sand—never causes environmental catastrophe under any circumstances. Silicified wood usually turns a beautiful silver-gray after about two months, due to sunlight and moisture. In particular, pine turns pink during the first month, then gradually shifts from white to silver-gray after two months have passed, radiating a distinctive beauty.
KD Wood Tech explained, "Silicified wood is characterized by uniform color change without distinction between knots, sapwood, or heartwood, and even in shaded areas or under direct sunlight. Moreover, it changes uniformly regardless of the type of wood—conifer, broadleaf, tropical, temperate, or Siberian timber—which not only relieves the hassle of maintaining wood with stain oil every year, but also reduces the cost of maintaining the wood's appearance." 02-3401-5525