In Maryland, a research team has developed a wood-based material strong enough to replace steel but that is six times lighter. The breakthrough could one day enable compostable cars.
Working out of the University of Maryland’s labs, the team removed lignin from soft woods such as balsa and compressed the remaining cellulose fibers to the point strong hydrogen bond were formed.
The trick was removing the right amount of lignin; too much or too little reduced the resulting material’s strength. The treated wood was fast enough to stop “bullet-like projectiles.”
The work is described in a paper entitled “Processing bulk natural wood into a high-performance structural material” and published in a recent issue of Nature.