In Korea, methyl bromide(MeBr) is the only registered fumigant for quarantine application in imported timbers and wood packaging materials to control foreign wood-destroying pest. Under a agreement in the Clean Air Act and the Montreal Protocol to MeBr's ozone depleting properties, the use of MeBr is now strictly restricted and phased out year by year, even though there are exemptions for QPS (Quarantine and Pre-shipment) and CUE (Critical Use Exemption). However, due to increasing of global trades and protection of agro-ecosystem in imported counties against quarantine pests, MeBr in QPS use is increasing (16,304t in 2005, approximately 8.7% increase based on 1996), and domestic consumption of MeBr is recorded up to 938t (annual average among 2003 and 2005), especially the 67% percent (628t) of total MeBr uses imported timber and wood packing materials. Since ethanedinitrile (EDN) was patented by CSIRO in Australia, BOC and Dongbu have tried to develop and commercialize EDN as a timber fumigant. This is updated information on the developmental status of EDN, which included the biological efficacy to target pests and the penetrating aspect to target commodity in the semi-field and various field trials. Based on current results, EDN could replace MeBr for using timber fumigation and would play an important role in the ozone layer protection.

The microstructure of the extruded Al-20Si bars showed a homogeneous distribution of eutectic Si and primary Si particles embedded in the Al matrix. The grain size of α-Al varied from 150 to 600 nm and the size of the eutectic Si and primary Si in the extruded bars was about 100 - 200 nm. The room temperature tensile strength of the alloy with a powder size <26μm was 322 MPa, while for the coarser powder (45-106μm) it was 230 MPa. With decreasing powder size from 45-106μm to <26μm, the specific wear of all the alloys decreased significantly at all sliding speeds due to the higher strength achieved by ultrafine-grained constituent phases. The fracture mechanism of failure in tension testing and wear testing was also studied.