The results of this research show that all wood vinegars
prepared from different resources can be used as coagulating
and antifungal agents to replace formic and acetic acids. The
coagulating efficiency of all wood vinegars was similar to
acetic acid and better than formic acid. The wood vinegars
showed higher antifungal efficiency than both formic and
acetic acid. The antifungal property of wood vinegars are
in order of coconut shell wood vinegar > bamboo wood
vinegar > Eucalyptus wood vinegar according to their phenolic
compound contents.
Since NR farmers can produce wood vinegar by themselves
through charcoal production, it could also reduce the
cost of NR sheet’s production. Therefore, wood vinegars
could become important factors in NR industry with ever
rising costs of petrochemical products. This study alsoprovided the first evidence that wood vinegars can inhibit
the fungi growth on NR sheets which makes them an
environmental friendly substitute for highly toxic antifungal
agents.
From our experience with the wood vinegars, our recommendation
to NR production is: substitute formic and acetic
acids with wood vinegar.