Wood turned into a clear material stronger than glass

[jimmy olsen]

Neato!

Pics and links within
http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/wood-turned-into-a-clear-material-stronger-than-glass/

Wood turned into a clear material stronger than glass

A team of researchers have developed a method of treating wood that turns it into a translucent material.

by  Michelle Starr

@riding_red / 17 May 20166:04 am BST

It may not be as easy to make as glass, but it's less, dense, stronger, better at insulating, and more biodegradable than plastic. The material is clear wood, and it could be used for everything from solar panels to light-admitting privacy windows, according to Lars Beglund at Wallenberg Wood Science Center at KTH, Sweden.

To make the wood clear, a process detailed in the journal Biomacromolecules, it is treated in a chemical bath to strip away the lignin, the molecule that gives wood its colour. This leaves behind a colourless scaffold, but it's rather soft, so this is treated with a transparent polymer, which gives the material its strength. The team's next step is to scale up the manufacturing process.

The team's research, interestingly, was followed by a very similar research paper by researchers at the University of Maryland, published in the journal Advanced Materials.

[Monoriu]

So it isn't transparent aluminum after all.

[jimmy olsen]

So it isn't transparent aluminum after all.

Transparent aluminum has already been invented.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_oxynitride

[Brazen]

I talked to a scientist at a military air show who claimed to be marketing something similar a couple of years ago. The idea was you could make aircraft and drones from it that would be considerably less visible to radar.

I bet Biomacromolecules is a great read.

[Malthus]

I'm glad to know it's "less". 

[Brazen]

I'm glad to know it's "less". 

"Would look like a flying tree instead of a metal ciga".

[The Brain]

Neat. When I saw the title I immediately thought of the wood guys at KTH (the Royal Institute of Technology, my old school). I remember walking by the wood science center as a kid and I always found it mildly amusing (no boner connection in Swedish, wood just didn't sound very sciency as a material).

[Admiral Yi]

So if you treat wood to make it transparent then mix it with plastic, it's as strong as plastic!

[The Brain]

So if you treat wood to make it transparent then mix it with plastic, it's as strong as plastic!

What are spoiler tags?

[Razgovory]

stronger then glass?  What could be stronger then glass?

[KRonn]

I'm glad to know it's "less". 

Less is More!