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April 5, 2016

Transparent wood might replace glass, says Swedish institute

Windows and solar panels could be made out of wood, as researchers at Stockholm's KTH Royal Institute of Technology have recently discovered a new transparent material made out of wood, which is also suitable for mass production.
During the study, published in the American Chemical Society journal, Biomacromolecules, optically transparent wood was divided into microscopic samples as to study its anatomy. Thus, the project made by KTH also includes a way to use wood on a large scale, as Lars Berglund, a professor at Wallenberg Wood Science Center at KTH, stated.

"Transparent wood is a good material for solar cells, since it's a low-cost, readily available and renewable resource. This becomes particularly important in covering large surfaces with solar cells,” Berglund added.

He said that these transparent wood panels can be used for windows and also for semitransparent facades, because the material lets the light in, but preserves the privacy. This optically transparent wood is a type of veneer wood in which the lignin is removed through a chemical process. Thus, the white porous veneer substrate is filled with a transparent polymer, making the optical properties of the two to match.
"When the lignin is removed, the wood becomes beautifully white. But because wood isn't not naturally transparent, we achieve that effect with some nanoscale tailoring," Berglund explained.
The project also includes to enhance the transparency of the material and balance the manufacturing process, because wood is the most used bio-based material in buildings construction, offering various mechanical properties, as strength, low density and low thermal conductivity, as Berglund added.
 
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