This is one of my favorite paths forward for long term CO2 reduction.
About 360 million years ago, there was something called the Carboniferous Period[1]. This was the 60 million year period after wood had evolved, but before anything had figured out how to eat it. Trees just piled up and piled up over the millennia sucking out a ton of carbon from the air and leaving an insanely high oxygen ratio, which lead to the evolution of large, high energy creatures with crazy high metabolisms that wouldn't be sustainable with modern oxygen ratios.
I love the idea of kicking off a second carboniferous period as we finally realize how to fully utilize the power of wood, and start treating it more like programmable diamond, sucking in the carbon from the air around it, and growing into incredibly strong shapes for any purpose.
Mine too. Interestingly, there's some suggestion that lack of lignin-degrading processes in nature at the time is more of a myth than anything. Instead, a unique combination of climate and tectonic activity drove the high rate of coal production at that time: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4780611/
IMO if we ever want to start taking sequestration via this method seriously it's trivial to start now - Grow fast trees(e.g. Maple, Pine). Log trees. Bury trees deep underground. Repeat. All the tech exists, is ubiquitous, and trivially easy to de-carbonize in itself. The major sticking point, I'd argue the solitary issue, is there's no money to be made in it.
As the article mentions, densified wood already exists as a product [1]. But it's basically never used for building materials. As far as I can tell it's main use-case is for electrical transformer support pads and anchorage, as you need a strong, non-conductive material for that. So right now it's a fairly niche product.
I'm not an expert, but as far as I know existing densified wood is basically stronger by virtue of cramming more material closer together - the wood fibers themselves don't change mechanical properties at all, there's just more of them in a given area. So your strength increases are paired with an increase mass as well. If this actually increased the strength of the wood fibers, that would be interesting.
It's an interesting technique, but we already have processed wood products that offer significant strength gains over natural lumber [2], and they haven't displaced regular wood all that much. Normal sawn lumber is often strong enough, and it's just incredibly inexpensive. So it's unclear how much difference another stronger, processed wood product would make to the building market (I can't speak to other uses like body armor or vehicles).
I think long term, the most potential for wood improvement lies with improved trees that grow stronger, faster, and with fewer natural defects. Most agricultural products have been deliberately bred for desirable traits for thousands of years, but we've only just begun to do this with trees. (I wrote more about this here: https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/stronger-faster-c... )
(Source: structural engineer, formerly worked at a mass-timber focused construction startup).
I thought the main application for this new material was just a cheaper hardwood. Take pine, boil it, compress it, heat it, and you have cheap ironwood. Should make for longer lasting construction materials, right?
Around here (San Francisco) the primary use of this kind of wood is for decks. It stands up very well in the weather and it's lovely. Popular is used a lot here for this process. The color changes to a rich, dark color.
I've been wanting to get some to work with but it's special order. Apparently this process is reasonably available now as one of the mills in Marin produces it. Unfortunately decking, eg. boards 1" think or less, seem to be the only kinds available. At least at the retail level.
Right, it seems the first step is analogous - breaking down the lignin with base and sulfite. But instead of impregnation with resin, the wood is squished and heated to re-form the crosslinking bonds.
It's a sign of a new trend for building with renewables. They're already breaking records with laminate construction. With new tech to push the boundaries even further, we might see this taking over from steel and concrete.
One of the advantages I didn't see compared was 'machinability' I wonder if you're able to CNC the densified wood in the same way you would as the metals mentioned in the article without compromising it's strength.
The whole "transparent wood" thing is such a scam. It's PLASTIC. A process removes nearly all of the wood from the material, then replaces it with transparent plastic, and somehow it's still marketed as "wood".
Only the West Bank and Gaza are embargoed; but I live in Haifa which is under Israeli control.
In the far past, stone was common; and indeed, today it's cement and hollow bricks. Both in the 1948-occupied parts (= Israel) and the 1967-occupied parts.
A lot of the middle east use some sort of stone or mud/dirt. Partly because lumber is not as plentiful and earthquakes are not much of a thing. Plus concrete / stone has better sound privacy characteristics and doesn't catch on fire.
Does anyone know if this could be used to build high-rises? I imagine it has enough strength for a 10 story building, but the fire risk might be too high.
No need for densified wood to build midrises, structured timber products like CLT (basically, fancier plywood) are already being used to construct 5 - 10 story buildings with the tallest wooden skyscrapers being planned at 20 - 70 stories tall: https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/wooden-skyscraper-revo...
There really needs to be research into breeding or creating trees that grow straight and to tens of meters in the span of a year or two provided a super diet that isn’t naturally found in the ground.
There is a convention of putting the year of origin in the title, though, which this submitter didn't do. Moderators will occasionally add it to a title, if they see it.
About 360 million years ago, there was something called the Carboniferous Period[1]. This was the 60 million year period after wood had evolved, but before anything had figured out how to eat it. Trees just piled up and piled up over the millennia sucking out a ton of carbon from the air and leaving an insanely high oxygen ratio, which lead to the evolution of large, high energy creatures with crazy high metabolisms that wouldn't be sustainable with modern oxygen ratios.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous
I love the idea of kicking off a second carboniferous period as we finally realize how to fully utilize the power of wood, and start treating it more like programmable diamond, sucking in the carbon from the air around it, and growing into incredibly strong shapes for any purpose.