Archive note: This text faithfully preserves the claims of the source article and does not constitute a new independent technical verification. The described research, process, material and possible applications are not a product, technical specification, certificate or project of Savo Kusić. The current public offering focuses on custom-made windows and doors.
Historical description of research
Wood is a strong and versatile building material, but like any material, it has drawbacks (it can rot over time, is vulnerable to insects and blocks the passage of light).
Ordinary glass panes are not much better, according to the source article. They readily refract light and allow large amounts of energy to pass into or out of a building. Engineers found what the article describes as the best of both: transparent wood.
Scientists Liangbing Hu, Dr. Mingwei Zhu and their colleagues from the University of Maryland managed to make a block of wood transparent, thus obtaining a material that could be used in construction and in electronic systems based on light.
The scientists removed from the wood the molecule described as making it rigid and dark, then filled the resulting colorless cellulose cell structures with epoxy resin to create wood that was largely transparent.
“This could be used in cars because the wood is both transparent and very strong,” said Dr. Zhu, first author of the study. “You could also use it as a unique building material.”
The source article states that removing the color and chemicals made the wood transparent, while also making it stronger and a better insulator than glass, as well as more biodegradable than plastic.
The procedure and properties mentioned in the article
The process that made the wood transparent began by boiling it in water mixed with sodium hydroxide and other chemicals for about 2 hours. This leached the lignin, the molecule that gives wood its color, out of the wood. After that, they poured epoxy resin over the block of wood, which made it four to five times stronger.
One of the stated properties of the “new” wood is that it retained the structure and natural channels formed while it was still “real” wood. These microchannels can carry light in a similar way to how they carried nutrients as part of the plant. “In traditional material, light is scattered,” Hu is quoted as saying. “If you achieve that effect in wood, more light will enter your home.”
Possible applications listed in the source
The source article says that, in the next stages of research, the scientists would seek to develop a technique for scaling the technology. This would enable the production of large blocks of transparent wood for uses ranging from windows, building materials and furniture to small applications such as precision optical equipment usually made of glass or plastic.
Sources: phys.org, youtube.com