Medite Tricoya, the new external-use MDF based on acetylated fibre, will be used in applications where wood products have not previously had a market, according to Andrew Macdonald, director sales and marketing of Medite manufacturer Coillte Panel Products.
He described the material, which BRE tests showed as an external use service life of 60 years, as a revolutionary breakthrough.
“This is not new and improved MDF, it’s a totally new and unique product,” he said. “It is ground breaking and will enable MDF to be used in applications where it has previously been excluded. In fact there are a number of industries looking at it that would not normally use a wood product.”
It was announced this week, after development work and testing progressed ahead of schedule and following positive market feedback, that Medite Tricoya was being launched two years ahead of schedule.
Joint development partner Accsys Technologies will now supply 7,500m³ of acetylated fibre over the next 17 months from its Arnhem fatory to Coillte’s Medite plant in Clonmel Ireland. Medite will then handle distribution and sales of the finished product in the UK, Ireland and Netherlands.
Mr Macdonald said that Medite Tricoya could be on the UK market in the fourth quarter of the year, with deliveries building up into the first quarter of 2012.
“We’ve had a lot of advance interest in the product and know there’s a definite market for it,” he said.
He said it was too early to discuss Medite Tricoya’s routes to market, but that its release would be controlled and distribution “targeted”.
“All we’ll say at the moment is that it is aimed at the architect and specifier sector,” he said.
“In the applications we expect it to be used, it will be competitive with products currently being used, but it will be a high end material,” he added.
Accsys Technologies says that the use of acetylated fibre makes Medite Tricoya “more dimensionally stable and biologically durable” than conventional MDF .
