Durability and Treatability of some Indian Bamboo Species - a Review

Bamboo is a versatile material that has been in use for construction of houses and huts since long and occupies an important place in the economy of rural areas. Being a fast growing and short maturity period species, it provides an excellent alternate structural material. The natural resistance against fungi and insect attack is rather low and this has to be regarded as a major shortcoming. Natural service life of bamboo is only a few months and after preservative treatment, a long service life is expected. There are a number of preservatives and methods adopted to treat bamboo. Green round bamboo can be treated by modified Boucherie, steeping, wick, sap displacement and diffusion methods. For dry bamboo, pressure treatment is found suitable. Ammoniacal copper arsenate solution to treat dry bamboo by soaking process is also found suitable in round form. Treatability of the bamboo varies from outer to inner surface, as the flow of fluid depends upon the size, shape and number of the vascular bundles occurring in the culm. The vascular bundles occurring in the inner zone of the culm treat better than the vascular bundles at the periphery. The degree of penetration decreased with increasing distance of the tissues such as fibres and parenchyma from thevessels.