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  [21]Quirks & Quarks·Analysis

Scientists develop transparent wood that is stronger and lighter than glass

  Bob McDonald's blog: A simple backyard procedure results in see-through
  wood with enormous potential as a building material.

Social Sharing

Bob McDonald's blog: a simple procedure results in see-through wood

  [22]Bob McDonald · CBC Radio · Posted: Feb 05, 2021 3:22 PM ET | Last
  Updated: February 5
  A flower is visible behind a piece of the transparent material. (Qinqin
  Xia, University of Maryland/Science Advances)

  Researchers at the University of Maryland have turned ordinary sheets
  of wood into [23]transparent material that is nearly as clear as glass,
  but stronger and with better insulating properties. It could become an
  energy efficient building material in the future.

  Wood is made of two basic ingredients: cellulose, which are tiny
  fibres, and lignin, which bonds those fibres together to give it
  strength.

  Tear a paper towel in half and look closely along the edge. You will
  see the little cellulose fibres sticking up. Lignin is a glue-like
  material that bonds the fibres together, a little like the plastic
  resin in fibreglass or carbon fibre. The lignin also contains molecules
  called chromophores, which give the wood its brown colour and prevent
  light from passing through.

  Early attempts to make transparent wood involved removing the lignin,
  but this involved hazardous chemicals, high temperatures and a lot of
  time, making the product expensive and somewhat brittle. The new
  technique is so cheap and easy it could literally be done in a
  backyard.

  Starting with planks of wood a metre long and one millimetre thick, the
  scientists simply brushed on a solution of hydrogen peroxide using an
  ordinary paint brush. When left in the sun, or under a UV lamp for an
  hour or so, the peroxide bleached out the brown chromophores but left
  the lignin intact, so the wood turned white.
  Researchers demonstrated after brushing a coat of hydrogen peroxide on
  the opaque wood material, and exposing it to one hour of sunlight, it
  turns transparent. (Qinqin Xia, University of Maryland/Science
  Advances)

  Next, they infused the wood with a tough transparent epoxy designed for
  marine use, which filled in the spaces and pores in the wood and then
  hardened. This made the white wood transparent.

  You can see a similar effect by taking that same piece of paper towel,
  dip half of it in water and place it on a patterned surface. The white
  paper towel will become translucent with light passing through the
  water and cellulose fibres without being scattered by refraction.

  The epoxy in the wood does an even better job, allowing 90 per cent of
  visible light to pass through. The result is a long piece of what looks
  like glass, with the strength and flexibility of wood.
  A researcher holds up a square of transparent wood material against a
  green leaf. (USDA Forest Service)

  As window material, it would be much more resistant to accidental
  breakage. The clear wood is lighter than glass, with better insulating
  properties, which is important because windows are a major source of
  heat loss in buildings. It also might take less energy to manufacture
  clear wood because there are no high temperatures involved.

  Transparent wood could become an alternative to glass in energy
  efficient buildings, or perhaps coverings for solar panels in harsh
  environments. There could be no end of uses.
    * [24]Bringing biology to bricks — concrete details on how to grow
      building materials

    * [25]We need plastics. But how do we avoid choking the planet with
      them?

  Many different types of wood, from balsa to oak, can be made
  transparent, and it doesn't matter if it is cut along the grain or
  against it. If the transparent wood is made a little thicker, it would
  be strong enough to become part of the structure of a building, so
  there could be entire transparent wooden walls.

  While this technology has yet to  be scaled up to industrial levels,
  the researchers say it has great potential as a new building material.
  In fact, they say that theoretically, an entire house could be made
  transparent. It is not clear why anyone would want to live in a
  transparent house, but for people who do, it would be OK to throw
  stones…
  A researcher holds up a 10-centimetre long slab of the see-through
  wood. (Qinqin Xia, University of Maryland/Science Advances)

  Images copyright Xia et al. [26]Creative Commons
  Attribution-NonCommercial license,

About the Author

  [27]Bob McDonald

  Bob McDonald is the host of CBC Radio's award-winning weekly science
  program, Quirks & Quarks. He is also a science commentator for CBC News
  Network and CBC-TV's The National. He has received 12 honorary degrees
  and is an Officer of the Order of Canada.
    * [28]Quirks & Quarks
    * [29]Bob McDonald RSS feed
    * [30]Bob McDonald's recent columns
    * [31]Bob McDonald's archived columns, 2006 to June 2014

Related Stories

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      building materials
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      them?

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