Impregnation of Porous Structures

Having established the bases on which impregnation can benefit our every day world, its use can go far beyond that of preserving porous structures. 

For instance, currently adhesives are treated as coatings, a thixotropic substance that has to be applied between two mating surfaces are brought together.  What if the two surfaces are brought together before the adhesive is applied in the form of an impregnant that relies on capillary attraction. Pipe fittings that can be hand tight and then drip-fed with an impregnant to fill and make leak tight a threaded connection .  A void that can be filled with cotton wool or a granular material and then impregnated to combine it and its host material together.  Something that general fillers are unable to achieve.

• An impregnant that can make use of the phenomena of capillary attraction to draw it quickly into the porous substrate where it cures in minutes rather than hours.
• An impregnant that can be designed to be hydrophilic.
• An impregnant that can take up polymerisation shrinkage by absorbing moisture around it to ensure that it fully fills the void that it has occupied.

These are things that cannot be achieved or sustained with surface coatings.  Such impregnants do not change the surface appearance of the host material, as they are by nature anaerobic, in other words reluctant to cure in the presence of air.  This means that any dampness left on the surface will simply evaporate within a period of a few days.

Imagine a wooden door or window damaged as a result of forced entrance, splintered, parts missing.  With the assistance of cotton wool to fill in the voids, some clamps, polythene film and impregnant, the damage can quickly be reconstructed to a point that a level of security can be regained.  This is simply achievable because the impregnant can be applied during or after the reassembly of the door parts with clamps and film being removed literally within minutes of application.  Such an undertaking is not possible within existing practises.