this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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233
Why scientists are making transparent wood / The results are amazing, that a piece of wood can be as strong as glass (arstechnica.com)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Why scientists are making transparent wood / The results are amazing, that a piece of wood can be as strong as glass::The material is being exploited for smartphone screens, insulated windows, and more.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 67 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I remember NileRed spent ages trying to reproduce this. The material seems very difficult to make.

[โ€“] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Came here to say this! Did you see the one where he tried to make the bullet proof wood too?

So much left to be discovered in this world! ๐Ÿคฉ

[โ€“] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Tried and succeeded. Honestly I was thinking about the possibilities if he used the same treatment technique to glue the boards, and if he criss-crossed the grains like plywood. The biggest weakness of the composite boards seemed to be how well they were glued.

Like I absolutely wasn't expecting it to stop a real calibre, but there seemed to be a critical thickness where even 9mm practically bounced off.

Also I'm really impressed with how simple the process was to replicate. Seems like the basic idea is, "the wood's not alive anymore so we can strip out all the stuff it doesn't need and just leave the structural fibres".

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Cellulose is a pretty cool polymer. We can already turn into many things - from food to clothes to plastic. And many moons ago it turned into oil on its own!

[โ€“] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

To be fair, he's more chemist than mechanical engineer. He got the chemistry down right away, but post-processing took a bit longer than I think it should have (speaking as a mechanical engineer...)

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

The idea to confine it sideways definitely seemed to take longer to appear than I thought it would. Like, yeah man, if you squish it, it'll spread out. But maybe he was reluctant to add complexity when he didn't have any experience designing parts like that. Also I wonder what would happen if it was confined both ways and then criss-crossed like plywood with multiple layers in a single pressing.