End-grained wood-polyurethane composites III : isocyanate-free route

End-grained wood/polyurethane composites were obtained by a water-based one-pot process free of diisocyanates. Wood was impregnated with both PEG and CBC-functionalized PEG as a coupling agent. A thorough study of the CBC-mediated end-groups conversion of PEG was achieved. It came out that functionalization conditions strongly affected the polyurethane chain extension and its grafting onto the wood structure. Antiswelling efficiency measurements showed that the one-pot procedure allowed to reach comparable dimensional stabilization than the diisocyanate-based process previously described. Morphological analysis demonstrated that such an improvement was attributable to the formation of cell wall-bulked WPCs.