Insect Control

What are Borates? Read Article to learn more about Borates and their uses.

Borates render wood unpalatable to termites and inhospitable to rot. After drilling into this infested windowsill, a builder injects liquid borates into the hole before filling it with epoxy and painting. Borates are reliable way to protect your wood from rot and insects.

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To stop decay or insect infestation, builders and homeowners can apply borates to existing wood or they can buy materials with borate protection already built in.

Borates in the Raw

Borates consist of boron, the fifth element on the periodic table, and oxygen, along with sodium, zinc, calcium, or a host of other minerals.  Those used mainly as wood preservatives and pesticide – zinc and sodium borates – are found either in crystallized form (1) or are extracted from mineral deposits in dry desert lake beds around the world.  Sodium borates can be mixed with boric acid and exposed to high heat and pressure to form cylindrical rods (2) that can be inserted into decaying or infested wood.  Raw borates are also refined into a powder (3) which can be mixed with ethylene glycol to create a penetrating liquid gel (4) one gallon of concentrated glycol borate will treat roughly 150 eight–foot 2x4s. To stop decay or insect infestation, builders and homeowners can apply borates to existing wood or they can buy materials with borate protection already built in.

In 1973, when quarter–inch–long powder–post beetles began tunneling out of window and door trim in more than 1,000 homes near Mobile, Alabama, the molding manufacturer sued the wood importer for $1 million.  In a deposition for the  trial, U.S. Forest Service researcher Lonnie Williams, a leading expert on the subject of wood–infesting beetles and wood preservation, testified that the Brazilian wood had been infested before it left the Amazon.  In his research, Williams had heard that builders in New Zealand and Australia had been successfully treating termite–ridden wood with borates, the cheap, environmentally safe mineral compounds that had been used in the United States as deodorizers and cleaning agents in borax laundry powders.  Because of the trial, Williams began work to introduce the pesticide alternative into the country’s wood manufacturing industry.

Twenty–eight years later, additional research by Williams and other scientists shows that borates can effectively deter many of wood’s natural enemies, including powder–post beetles, house borers, carpenter ants, termites, fungi, mildew, even fire.  Yet to mammals, including house pets and humans, it is about as toxic as table salt.
To stop decay or insects that have already begun to do damage, builders and home–owners can apply borates to existing wood.  To prevent infection or decay, they can buy materials – everything from studs, sheathing, and siding to insulation – with borate protection already built in.  the U.S. Department of housing and urban Development accepts these materials as an alternative to drenching sub–foundation soil with chemical based termiticides and pesticides.  And unlike pressure treated lumber, which has a greenish hue from the infusion of chromate copper arsenate (CCA), wood infused with borates doesn’t change color, is safe to burn, and hasn’t raised any environmental or health concerns.  “Nothing is one hundred percent safe,” says Williams, now an independent consulting contractor.  “But borate treatment is essentially safe.  I think it can really help people.”
The way borates kill termites and other wood eating insects is by poisoning the microorganisms  in the insects’ digestive tracts that are needed to break down the wood’s cellulose.  In other words, a termite that eats borate treated materials eventually starves to death.  For carpenter ants and other insects that burrow through wood instead of ingesting it, scientists believe that borates enter and poison the digestive tract when the insects attempt to groom themselves.  So far, insects have shown no ability to develop resistance to this type of attack. Borates also inhibit the wood dissolving enzymes excreted by the many different kinds of decay fungi,  and they are a potent mildewcide.  As an added benefit, borates act as a fire retardant by forming a glaze that prevents wood from igniting.

The pesticide qualities of borates have been known for at least 300 years.  Joseph Nagyvary, a biochemistry professor at Texas A & M University who spent 25 years studying 17th century Stradivarius violins, says the instruments may have been treated in a borate solution to protect them from beetle larvae.  Back then, the mineral arrived in Europe mostly by caravan from hot geothermal lakes in Tibet.

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Boric Acid Uses – Medicinal

Boric acid has antiseptic, antifungal, antibacterial and astringent properties. For these reasons, it finds it way in many home remedies and also medicinal prescriptions.

For Eye Treatments

Boric acid is the only acid in the world that is beneficial rather than harmful for human eyes. In fact, some of the leading optical product manufacturers of the world are using boric acid for their eyewashes. Chemists would not like to sell this chemical to people for eye treatments, but solutions that contain this acid in them can be bought easily. Typically it is used in the treatment of pinkeye (conjunctivitis), eye infections and discharges from the eyes.

For Ear Treatments

Swimmers use boric acid solutions to clean their ears of fungi that might have entered their eyes from the water when swimming. It is also used in treating various kinds of ear infections in both humans and pets that might occur due to assorted reasons.

For Skin Treatments

When topically used in specific areas such as the feet, it can reduce excessive sweating which causes smelling of the feet. It is used in the treatment of candidiasis, which is an infection of yeast in the vagina. Other skin problems that boric acid can combat with are athlete's foot and most kinds of fungal and yeast infections on the skin. It is also useful for treating epidermal wounds on the skin due to its antiseptic properties. It can be included in the dressings for minor wounds such as cuts and burns.