Maryland-based startup InventWood is about to mass-produce the primary batches of ‘Superwood,’ a brand new materials fabricated from modified timber that is stronger than common barky stems, and even stronger than metal. It is set to go on sale later this 12 months.
Editor’s notice: Readers typically ask us for follow-ups on memorable tales. This text was initially printed method again in February 2018, and has been re-edited and up to date with new info present as of Might 2025. Take pleasure in!
College of Maryland supplies scientist Liangbing Hu first devised the fabric with a ‘densification course of’ again in 2018. TechCrunch famous that this gives it a strength-to-weight 10 times better than steel.
InventWood
The ensuing Superwood can also be resistant to fireplace, weathering, and pests. Hu has since fine-tuned the manufacturing course of so it may be manufactured at scale in hours reasonably than weeks, and licensed the expertise to InventWood. The corporate raised US$15 million to construct a manufacturing unit, and can ship its first batches of the fabric out of there this Northern Hemisphere summer season.
Initially, Superwood merchandise will probably be finest fitted to use in facades; the plan is to subsequently deal with structural purposes that might substitute a number of the concrete and metal required to assemble sturdy buildings.
InventWood
Over the previous couple of years, Hu has developed transparent wood, burnt-wood water filters, and sodium-ion batteries based mostly on wood and leaves.
The brand new Superwood will get its tremendous power by a two-step course of developed by Hu’s staff of scientists. First, the researchers boil samples of wooden in a watery combination of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfite, which works to partially take away lignin and hemicellulose from the fabric. Then, the handled wooden is hot-pressed, which causes the cell partitions to break down and types highly-aligned cellulose nanofibers. The tip result’s fully densified wooden, which is far stronger than the pure stuff.
“This new technique to deal with wooden makes it 12 occasions stronger than pure wooden and 10 occasions harder,” mentioned Hu in 2018. “This could possibly be a competitor to metal and even titanium alloys, it’s so robust and sturdy. It is also corresponding to carbon fiber, however a lot inexpensive.”
College of Maryland
One of many experiments the staff ran to check the fabric was to fireplace projectiles at it. Whereas they blasted proper by the pure wooden, the tremendous wooden managed to cease the projectiles partway by.
The researchers mentioned that the method will be utilized to many alternative sorts of wooden, and will be scaled to deal with bulk quantities of the fabric without delay. Originally of the method, the wooden will be bent and molded into the specified form.
The brand new materials couldn’t solely enable wooden to step in as a less expensive, lighter and extra renewable various to steels and titanium alloys – it may additionally enable softer woods to compete with their sturdier however slower-growing cousins.
“This sort of wooden could possibly be utilized in vehicles, airplanes, buildings – any utility the place metal is used,” mentioned Hu. “Gentle woods like pine or balsa, which develop quick and are extra environmentally pleasant, may substitute slower-growing however denser woods like teak in furnishings or buildings.”
The 2018 analysis was printed within the journal Nature.
Supply: University of Maryland through ScienceDaily / TechCrunch
A model of this text was initially printed on February 7, 2018.
