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| Translucent wood can someday replace glass |
A new study shows that transparent wood could one day replace glass on windows. This is a way to make wood transparent without using a lot of energy.
Previous experiments with this process were energy-intensive and used harmful chemicals.
For hundreds of years, people used firewood to build homes and boats, and they used it as fuel for burning. It is a renewable resource and a way to capture excess carbon dioxide from the Earth's atmosphere.
Wood is not used to make windows, but we do use glass and plastic to make them. It is transparent and provides structural support when strengthened.
Buildings lose a lot of heat through glass. Although light can absorb heat through materials, it is not a good insulator. This is why we need double glazing. On the other hand, wood is very insulating but opaque.
In recent years, material scientists have conducted experiments to make wood transparent, make wood transparent, and maintain its high mechanical properties, which is a good alternative to glass from sustainable and renewable sources.
The lack of transparency in the wood is due to the combination of the two main components of cellulose and lignin, as the lignin absorbs light and the lignin fibers are made of cellulose and have a hollow tubular structure.
The air from these hollow tubes diffuses the light, which further reduces the transparency of the material.
Previous attempts to make wood transparent involved removing all lignin from the structure and replacing the lignin with a resinous material.
Delignification requires many environmentally harmful chemicals, and it also significantly reduces the mechanical properties of the tissue, making it weaker.
This new study by researchers at the University of Maryland explains how to use a simple chemical - hydrogen peroxide - to make hair transparent and translucent wood.
This chemical changes the color of the chrome, which makes the wood appear brown when the light is activated and changes its structure so that it does not absorb light and changes the color of the wood.
Chemicals can be sprayed onto the wood and then activated with light to create a bright white substance.
The chemical reaction between wood and hydrogen peroxide is the basis for bleaching wood pulp to produce paper.
This chemical reaction is one reason why paper is so white, and the other has to do with holes or holes in the paper's structure that scatter light, just like the hollow cellulose fibers in wood.
Filling these fibers with resin can reduce this dispersion, allowing light to pass through the wood and making it transparent while preserving its original mechanical properties.
This method can be applied to bulk materials to create transparent building materials and provide a real possibility of substituting glass.
There is still a lot of work to be done to improve interaction with wood and incorporate it into automated industrial processes, but one day you can sit in a house or work in a building with wooden windows.