New ways to molecularly tamper with wood has led to a bulletproof, fire resistant, lightweight material that could replace steel, concrete, and carbon fiber.
Appropriately dubbed “Superwood,” the applications seem to be limited only to imagination, and may hold up a high-rise just as sure as it might make better tennis rackets.
In 2018, the Wall Street Journal reports, a pioneering materials engineer found a way to take wood scraps that were no longer useable and treat them with heat and chemicals to alter their molecular makeup.
The boards could then be compressed to the point where the pressure collapses the channels between the lignan that serve as the tree’s circulatory system. This process could take a standard board and render it one-quarter the thickness whilst retaining the increased strength from the treatment process.
Sold now by InventWood, a firm that amassed $50 million in startup money from a mixture of Dept. of Energy grants and private financing, Chief Executive Alex Lau believes it could replace steel I-beams in houses or even the exterior of a laptop computer—all depending on what machines are available to work the Superwood.
During a fire, the wood doesn’t sag like steel does at comparable temperatures, nor does it truly burn; the outside carbonizes into an airtight layer before the interior layers of wood feel the heat.
Christopher Mims, reporting at WSJ, says that in his hands the Superwood felt like an “otherworldly object,” due to its combination of lightness and the incredible strength and resistance to lateral force.
GNN has reported before on alternative preparations of wood before, mostly of cross-laminated timber or CLT, also known as “mass timber.” CLT is made by gluing exceptionally thin boards of wood together before heat-pressing them, resulting in properties similar to Superwood.
CLT has been used to build the hilariously-named “plyscrapers,” of Scandinava, as well as a new $2 billion Portland Oregon airport terminal.
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The difference maker in Superwood is its light weight and flexibility in addition to tensile strength and fire-resistance similar to CLT.
Today, InventWood is bringing Superwood to market with a 90,000-square-foot manufacturing facility. Its initial offerings will be home sidings, which require minimal certifications, but will hopefully be available in many more products in the not-too-distant future.
It’s A Board, It’s Been Planed, No, It’s Superwood. Let Your Friends Know…