May 17May 17 InventWood is about to mass-produce wood that’s stronger than steel It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but it actually comes from a lab in Maryland. In 2018, Liangbing Hu, a materials scientist at the University of Maryland, devised a way to turn ordinary wood into a material stronger than steel. It seemed like yet another headline-grabbing discovery that wouldn’t make it out of the lab. “All these people came to him,” said Alex Lau, CEO of InventWood, “He’s like, OK, this is amazing, but I’m a university professor. I don’t know quite what to do about it.” Rather than give up, Hu spent the next few years refining the technology, reducing the time it took to make the material from more than a week to a few hours. Soon, it was ready to commercialize, and he licensed the technology to InventWood. Now, the startup’s first batches of Superwood will be produced starting this summer. “Right now, coming out of this first-of-a-kind commercial plant — so it’s a smaller plant — we’re focused on skin applications,” Lau said. “Eventually we want to get to the bones of the building. Ninety percent of the carbon impact from buildings is concrete and steel in the construction of the building.” To build the factory, InventWood has raised $15 million in the first close of a Series A round. The round was led by the Grantham Foundation with participation from Baruch Future Ventures, Builders Vision, and Muus Climate Partners, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. InventWood’s Superwood product starts with regular timber, which is mostly composed of two compounds, cellulose and lignin. The goal is to strengthen the cellulose already present in the wood. “The cellulose nanocrystal is actually stronger than a carbon fiber,” Lau said. The company treats it with “food industry” chemicals to modify the molecular structure of the wood, he said, and then compresses the result to increase the hydrogen bonds between cellulose molecules. “We might densify the material by 4x and you might think, ‘Oh, it’ll be four times strong, because it has four times the fiber.’ But it’s actually more like 10 times stronger because of all these extra bonds that get created,” Lau said. The result is a material that has 50% more tensile strength than steel with a strength-to-weight ratio that’s 10 times better, the company said. It’s also Class A fire rated, or highly resistant to flame, and resistant to rot and pests. With some polymer impregnated, it can be stabilized for outdoor use like siding, decking, or roofing. InventWood’s first products will be facade materials for commercial and high-end residential buildings, Lau said. Compressing the material also concentrates the colors. “You end up with something that looks like these richer, tropical hardwoods,” he added. Ultimately, InventWood is planning to use wood chips to create structural beams of any dimension that won’t need finishing. “Imagine your I-beams look like this,” Lau said, holding up a sample of Superwood. “They’re beautiful, like walnut, ipe. These are the natural colors. We haven’t stained any of this.”
May 17May 17 Interesting. Most wood has about 10% the density of steel, so if they compress it 4X they're up to ~ 40% or so. A strength-to-weight ratio 10X that of steel (what alloy? steel strength varies wildly) implies 4X the strength of steel (10X = 4X/0.4X). And the big question . . . cost.
May 17May 17 I got bored reading the history and sales pitch in the link- stronger than steel in which ways? And is the best application replacing wood products or steel products?
May 17May 17 Popular Post While living in Puerto Rico during the early 1950s my Dad acquired some beams of Ausubo wood that were salvaged from a renovation of a 17th Century Spanish colonial building on our US Army post (Fort Brooke). That wood supposedly has a Janka hardness of 3130 lbs. He had several table lamps (two single & one double) and some small items made from it, and I inherited this one single lamp…..(of course I attached the stained glass shade): The side table is Taiwanese teak, custom made when we lived there in the late 1950s. Edited May 17May 17 by Armybrat
May 17May 17 2 minutes ago, UT_OB1 said: They compress the wood to make hydrogen bonds?…. L O fucking L. They inject some chemicals and a polymer. They aren't idiots.
May 17May 17 https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a16758876/chemical-treated-super-wood-steel/ This is from 2018, it seems like in earnest they have continued development and commercialization and it isn't just some nonsense.
May 17May 17 Sounds like a great product if the price falls in-line with ipe. I doubt it will be used in general residential framing because of price and because soft woods are easier to cut, frame and nail.
May 17May 17 4 minutes ago, immamac said: They inject some chemicals and a polymer. They aren't idiots. Sounds a little like an artificial petrifying process, but obviously (hopefully) not as brittle.
May 17May 17 11 minutes ago, Bevo said: Sounds like a great product if the price falls in-line with ipe. I doubt it will be used in general residential framing because of price and because soft woods are easier to cut, frame and nail. If you need to cut it, you just show it a picture of Sarah Huckabee for a few minutes.
May 17May 17 1 hour ago, immamac said: They inject some chemicals and a polymer. They aren't idiots. 59 minutes ago, immamac said: https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a16758876/chemical-treated-super-wood-steel/ This is from 2018, it seems like in earnest they have continued development and commercialization and it isn't just some nonsense. i wonder the environmental impact of this product, the OP article mentions using food grade materials, so I wonder what those polymers are? I also get that polymers imply plastic, but aren’t limited to plastic.
May 17May 17 1 minute ago, Ghost of NMAS said: How do you nail wood that's stronger than steel? See Captain Ron’s post #8 above.
May 17May 17 36 minutes ago, Parliament said: Aggy gonna build sky scrapers from it. Add on to their football field.
May 17May 17 1 hour ago, Bevo said: Sounds like a great product if the price falls in-line with ipe. I doubt it will be used in general residential framing because of price and because soft woods are easier to cut, frame and nail. Yeah I don't think anyone would suggest using it to replace normal framing material, that's not a good use case. But it could be used to replace steel beams or even the current version of laminated wood beams, if the price is in line or cheaper.
May 17May 17 3 hours ago, Parliament said: Aggy gonna build sky scrapers from it. Now when the bonfire collapses in a pile, it can just stay there as a permanent monument for 100 years. Advantage Aggy.
May 17May 17 Superwood had a nice career making porno flix in the 80s. His catchphrase was “Up, Up, In your guts!” RIP Super.
May 18May 18 10 hours ago, Ghost of NMAS said: How do you nail wood that's stronger than steel? Old growth hardwood is already almost impossible to (hand) nail.
May 18May 18 7 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said: Natalie woods don’t even float all the time. Too soon, bro.
May 18May 18 https://patents.google.com/patent/US11130256B2/en?inventor=Liangbing+Hu&oq=Liangbing+Hu&page=1 One of the patents for the curious.
May 18May 18 There's been lignin wood nails for some time now, I wonder if this is a "what if we made a whole board outta this stuff" kind of deal. The nails are a similar thing where they're impregnated with resin and trade secrets and physically become part of the wood once set. I recall reading things like "higher strength than traditional steel nails" and the like
May 18May 18 5 hours ago, Captainant said: There's been lignin wood nails for some time now, I wonder if this is a "what if we made a whole board outta this stuff" kind of deal. The nails are a similar thing where they're impregnated with resin and trade secrets and physically become part of the wood once set. I recall reading things like "higher strength than traditional steel nails" and the like Apparently not. This process and the resulting product seems to rely on cross-linking cellulose. And aligning the fibers. Lignin is removed from the wood. Also, the chemicals in question seem to be these: The chemical solution can include chemicals used in pulping or pulp bleaching and can include at least one of NaOH, NaOH/Na2S, NaHSO3+SO2+H2O, NaHSO3, NaHSO3+Na2SO3, NaOH+Na2SO3, Na2SO3, NaOH+AQ, NaOH/Na2S+AQ, NaHSO3+SO2+H2O+AQ, NaOH+Na2SO3+AQ, NaHSO3+AQ, NaHSO3+Na2SO3+AQ, Na2SO3+AQ, NaOH+Na2S+Na2Sn, Na2SO3+NaOH+CH3OH+AQ, CH3OH, C2H5OH, C2H5OH+NaOH, C4H9OH, HCOOH, CH3COOH, CH3OH+HCOOH, C4H8O2, NH3.H2O, p-TsOH, H2O2, NaClO, NaClO2+acetic acid, ClO2, and Cl2, where n in an integer and AQ is Anthraquinone. Lotta pretty caustic stuff, but I really don't know how environmentally harmful that class of chemicals is. Also, looks like the ultimate tensile strength of this stuff is 400-500MPa, while steels ranges from 400-1800MPa. But, being non-ductile, it won't have a yield strength because it has little or no elastic deformation. Edited May 18May 18 by TwiceHorn
May 18May 18 51 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said: Also, looks like the ultimate tensile strength of this stuff is 400-500MPa, That doesn't support the "10X strength to weight" claim.
May 19May 19 16 hours ago, jimmyjazz said: That doesn't support the "10X strength to weight" claim. It neither supports nor refutes the claim. A tensile strength result relates force to cross-sectional area and does not include weight in its calculation in any way.
May 19May 19 The patent discloses a specific strength (UTS/density) for this stuff of 300-500MPa*cm3/g, while steel is 50-255. So 10x is stretching a bit, but supportable. Jimmy has an MSME. I imagine he knows that, although he's a vibration/acoustic guy. We don't deal with wood much (that kind anyway, hey oh), but the density of wood is roughly 0.1x that of steel. So achieving a lower-grade steel-like UTS supports the notion, if just barely. And I guess in most cases, "structural steel" is lower grade. Also, like fiber-composite, there's a directionality to the strength (weaker transverse to the grain). That works for composites because of their near infinite formability. Less so for wood. Looking at this guy's patents, he was apparently originally looking at reducing the weight of wood, but then hit upon compressing it and wound up making it stronger.
May 19May 19 1 hour ago, Texaskimo said: It neither supports nor refutes the claim. A tensile strength result relates force to cross-sectional area and does not include weight in its calculation in any way. The implication is a 2.5X increase in strength-to-weight ratio: “We might densify the material by 4x and you might think, ‘Oh, it’ll be four times strong, because it has four times the fiber.’ But it’s actually more like 10 times stronger because of all these extra bonds that get created,” Lau said. Edited May 19May 19 by jimmyjazz
May 19May 19 1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said: Jimmy has an MSME. I imagine he knows that, although he's a vibration/acoustic guy. Coursework? Yes. But my grad research and subsequent career path was in structural FEA and electromechanics. I have finally come full circle and I'm now designing loudspeakers, which is what I wanted to do in the first place.
May 19May 19 17 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said: Coursework? Yes. But my grad research and subsequent career path was in structural FEA and electromechanics. I have finally come full circle and I'm now designing loudspeakers, which is what I wanted to do in the first place.
May 19May 19 46 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said: Coursework? Yes. But my grad research and subsequent career path was in structural FEA and electromechanics. I have finally come full circle and I'm now designing loudspeakers, which is what I wanted to do in the first place. We respect you for that, but we have doubts about your marketing plan to exclusively sell the product out of white vans in big-box store parking lots, claiming that someone else "placed a messed up order, and now I have to unload these for whatever I can get for them."
May 19May 19 Just now, Brisketexan said: We respect you for that, but we have doubts about your marketing plan to exclusively sell the product out of white vans in big-box store parking lots, claiming that someone else "placed a messed up order, and now I have to unload these for whatever I can get for them." I thought we weren't supposed to dox people around here?
May 19May 19 11 minutes ago, Brisketexan said: We respect you for that, but we have doubts about your marketing plan to exclusively sell the product out of white vans in big-box store parking lots, claiming that someone else "placed a messed up order, and now I have to unload these for whatever I can get for them." I think I might still have those speakers?
May 19May 19 8 hours ago, jimmyjazz said: Coursework? Yes. But my grad research and subsequent career path was in structural FEA and electromechanics. I have finally come full circle and I'm now designing loudspeakers, which is what I wanted to do in the first place.
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