Scientists made see-through wood that's stronger than glass

a reply to: mbkennel

You missed it too, huh?

originally posted by: Mianeye
a reply to: interupt42

Interesting, though, we are already clearing forest for paper production and such, i doubt the forest could support another wood product.

How recent is your info? How recent are your assumptions?

The last I heard, the tree farms take care of ALL our paper product needs.

a reply to: interupt42

How?

Transparent paper anyone?

How do they make it clear and not opaque?

Its wood. Is it flammable?

originally posted by: John_Rodger_Cornman
a reply to: interupt42

How?

Transparent paper anyone?

How do they make it clear and not opaque?

Trump told the Wood to become opaque or he would deport it. LOL

Kidding I wondered the same when first read it. but it's a two-stage process. Although the article didn't have all the specifics and details.

The researchers first boiled the wood in water, sodium hydroxide and other chemicals for roughly two hours. This flushes out lignin, the molecule responsible for giving wood its color.

The team then poured epoxy over the block which makes the wood four to five times stronger,

One of the great properties of the treated wood is how it retains the structure and natural channels from when it was a tree. These micro-channels can then deliver light similarly to how it moved nutrients around as part of a plant. "In traditional material the light gets scattered," said Hu. "If you have this waveguide effect with wood, more light comes into your house."

a reply to: John_Rodger_Cornman

Old fashion cellophane is transparent paper/wood.

a reply to: interupt42

It is just cellulose reinforced epoxy. Most of it is epoxy, which is not a good glazing material. Expense and optical properties say no application for windows.

originally posted by: pteridine
a reply to: interupt42

It is just cellulose reinforced epoxy. Most of it is epoxy, which is not a good glazing material. Expense and optical properties say no application for windows.

Here is another article with a little more detail but not much more.

www.kth.se...

"When the lignin is removed, the wood becomes beautifully white. But because wood isn't not naturally transparent, we achieve that effect with some nanoscale tailoring," he says.

The white porous veneer substrate is impregnated with a transparent polymer and the optical properties of the two are then matched

Berglund says transparent wood panels can also be used for windows, and semitransparent facades, when the idea is to let light in but maintain privacy.

originally posted by: interupt42

originally posted by: pteridine
a reply to: interupt42

It is just cellulose reinforced epoxy. Most of it is epoxy, which is not a good glazing material. Expense and optical properties say no application for windows.

Here is another article with a little more detail but not much more.

www.kth.se...

"When the lignin is removed, the wood becomes beautifully white. But because wood isn't not naturally transparent, we achieve that effect with some nanoscale tailoring," he says.

The white porous veneer substrate is impregnated with a transparent polymer and the optical properties of the two are then matched

Berglund says transparent wood panels can also be used for windows, and semitransparent facades, when the idea is to let light in but maintain privacy.

Thanks for the additional info. Epoxy generally doesn't hold up well to solar UV and is more expensive than glass, by far. As interior structures, they may be useful. The market will dictate application.

be nice if we could just do that with soy beans

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: angryhulk

Well i seem to remember playing snooker/pool as a child and repeatedly bouncing the ball off a double glazed window during my break with no damage to the window.

Ive also seen them being skelped with half bricks to little or no effect. So those pre-teen nutcases must have been high on more than sugar or eating there Weetabix that day.

Im not suggesting they are indestructible but compared to normal plate glass there are certainly rather robust.

Why were you repeatedly bouncing a snooker pall off a window? Demon child! Haha.

I don't know mate, Scottish lads must have a good throwing arm then.

originally posted by: Rocker2013

originally posted by: angryhulk
a reply to: interupt42

This is most definitely interesting however I would prefer if we deterred ourselves from chopping down even more trees.

Sustainability is far more of an issue now than it ever has been before, it's perfectly fine to chop down trees as long as we're replacing that source and replenishing the supply as we go.

There is more we can do of course, but things are far better now that people are taking personal responsibility for where their wood comes from.

I get that, and that's fine. I just don't want things to go south.

originally posted by: imitator
I can't wait to get a Fender strat from this, and debate it's wood tone properties lol...

Haunting mids for days!

a reply to: interupt42

so the TL : DR translation :

` we have made chemically treated wood fibres transparent and used them as the " filler " in cast resin blocks `

tell us - how does this differe significantly from " traditional " GRP [ GLASS RE-INFORCED PLASTIC ] ?

i am trying not to be snarky , but :

the processing of the wood SEEMS to be very enery energy intensive , costly and waste producing

[ as opposed to ` traditional ` glass fibre production ]

wood is an exclent material - it can be used ` raw ` for many applications that there are few [ if any ] superior subsitutes

processing the crap out of it - to make a ` glass ` ersatz seems rather pointless to me

a reply to: ignorant_ape

` we have made chemically treated wood fibres transparent and used them as the " filler " in cast resin blocks `

I think their may be more to this but unfortunately the articles I have come across are pretty lacking on details?

What's the point of calling it wood after all that processing and then composite joining and then yet more tweaking? Seems like it's a composite polymer that just uses wood as an expensive substrate instead of any one of a zillion other materials, and that takes a lot more water, and chemicals, and effort.

I'm all for new tech. Maybe once we have it, someone will find a cool application for it.

We already do have a number of pretty hard, see-through material composites though.

Wiki on Sodium Hydroxide used for processing this:

Sodium hydroxide (NaOH), also known as lye and caustic soda, is an inorganic compound. It is a white solid and highly caustic metallic base and alkali salt of sodium ... Sodium hydroxide is industrially produced as a 50% solution by variations of the electrolytic chloralkali process. Chlorine gas is also produced in this process. Solid sodium hydroxide is obtained from this solution by the evaporation of water. Sodium hydroxide is a popular strong base used in industry. Around 56% of sodium hydroxide produced is used by industry, 25% of which is used in the paper industry. Sodium hydroxide is also used in the manufacture of sodium salts and detergents, pH regulation, and organic synthesis. ... In bulk, it is most often handled as an aqueous solution, since solutions are cheaper and easier to handle.

Sodium hydroxide is also widely used in pulping of wood for making paper or regenerated fibers. Along with sodium sulfide, sodium hydroxide is a key component of the white liquor solution used to separate lignin from cellulose fibers in the kraft process. It also plays a key role in several later stages of the process of bleaching the brown pulp resulting from the pulping process. These stages include oxygen delignification, oxidative extraction, and simple extraction, all of which require a strong alkaline environment with a pH > 10.5 at the end of the stages.

In a similar fashion, sodium hydroxide is used to digest tissues, as in a process that was used with farm animals at one time. This process involved placing a carcass into a sealed chamber, then adding a mixture of sodium hydroxide and water (which breaks the chemical bonds that keep the flesh intact). This eventually turns the body into a liquid with coffee-like appearance, and the only solid that remains are bone hulls, which could be crushed between one's fingertips. Sodium hydroxide is frequently used in the process of decomposing roadkill dumped in landfills by animal disposal contractors. Due to its low cost and availability, it has been used to dispose of corpses by criminals.

Sorry the last part is irrelevant... :-)

RC

a reply to: angryhulk

I was was just quite bad at snooker back then and rather over zealous on the break.

"Sustainable" forestry is a bit of a sham. Large forestry companies clear cut huge plots of land which contain both hardwoods and softwoods, then spray things like glyphosate which prevent hardwoods from growing back for 25 years and then replant only softwoods. The lack of young hardwoods means a loss of habitat and food for a multitude of animals.

I would much rather they develop new products like this using hemp.

originally posted by: Tybrus


"Sustainable" forestry is a bit of a sham. Large forestry companies clear cut huge plots of land which contain both hardwoods and softwoods, then spray things like glyphosate which prevent hardwoods from growing back for 25 years and then replant only softwoods. The lack of young hardwoods means a loss of habitat and food for a multitude of animals.

I would much rather they develop new products like this using hemp.

From what the hippies promised in the 90's we should all have hemp powered hemp made flying hemp-mobiles by now.

I'd have a green house made of the stuff ,