At this point we all know the attributes that wood can or cannot offer, surely you do not need to be an expert in this type of material to know certain characteristics of it with which it precisely differs from others. Because of this, if anyone ever asks you if wood can offer the same resistance as steel surely you flatly deny.
Well, according to a latest study conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Maryland, apparently this is very possible. As a detail, before advancing on this topic, tell you that thanks to the process they have developed, it can be as resistant as steel, a process that offers great possibilities for this material and that joins others with which to make the wood resistant to fire and even transparent.
The team led by Liangbing Hu has been able to create a type of wood as strong as steel
The project through which it has been possible to develop a methodology with which to make the wood so resistant has been developed by the team of researchers led by Dr. Liangbing hu.
As has been revealed, in order to increase the resistance of this material, it must be subjected to two very different phases. First of all, wood must be boiled in a solution of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfite. Thanks to this, lignin and cellulose are partially eliminated. Once these two substances are eliminated, all that remains is to do a hot pressing. The result of all this work is that the cellulose fibers are aligned at the nano-scale.
To be as resistant as steel, wood must be treated in a densification process
As a result, as you may be imagining, we have a piece of wood that, thanks to this densification processThis is how the team of researchers has called their methodology, capable of offering the resistance and hardness for which a material such as steel has long stood out.
In the words of Liangbing Hu himself, apparently and following his densification processes, wood can be made to be up to 12 times stronger than a similar untreated piece of material and even until its hardness is up to 10 times higher as expected. As expected, it is not surprising that many manufacturers eagerly await the arrival of this new type of material on the market, not in vain it can be much more versatile than steel and even titanium for some of your applications.
Another point that we must take into account, in addition to these very interesting characteristics, is the cost of working with a material such as densified wood to do it with others such as steel or titanium. According to the researchers who have worked on this project, using this type of wood can significantly reduce manufacturing costs of certain pieces.
There is still a long way to go for this manufacturing process to be viable from an industrial point of view
Using this type of material, in addition to offering the aforementioned characteristics, can offer other advantages compared to the use of normal wood, such as the one that more porous and soft woods can be used, which today cannot be used because, for certain manufacturing processes, their use is literally not viable. This means that you can give a break to different species of trees whose growth is much slower and whose wood, due to its hardness, is overexploited by the industry.
The negative part, as explained by the group of researchers from the University of Maryland that has presented these results, we have it in that at the moment we are only facing research that looks very good. Now there is a long way to go until the necessary manufacturing processes are truly constituted so that this work methodology is viable for an industrial and professionalized world.