Why scientists are making transparent wood / The results are amazing, that a piece of wood can be as strong as glass::The material is being exploited for smartphone screens, insulated windows, and more.
Not seeing how windows would be a good use. We already have safety glass and materials to make glass is more plentiful. Display screens make sense if the material ends up as hard as glass but won’t shatter. That would be fantastic.
We’re running out of sand.
No we aren’t. Silica is one of the most plentiful materials on earth.
Yes, we ARE running out! So much so that people are getting violent https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-is-running-out-of-sand
I remember NileRed spent ages trying to reproduce this. The material seems very difficult to make.
Came here to say this! Did you see the one where he tried to make the bullet proof wood too?
So much left to be discovered in this world! 🤩
Tried and succeeded. Honestly I was thinking about the possibilities if he used the same treatment technique to glue the boards, and if he criss-crossed the grains like plywood. The biggest weakness of the composite boards seemed to be how well they were glued.
Like I absolutely wasn’t expecting it to stop a real calibre, but there seemed to be a critical thickness where even 9mm practically bounced off.
Also I’m really impressed with how simple the process was to replicate. Seems like the basic idea is, “the wood’s not alive anymore so we can strip out all the stuff it doesn’t need and just leave the structural fibres”.
Cellulose is a pretty cool polymer. We can already turn into many things - from food to clothes to plastic. And many moons ago it turned into oil on its own!
Now we just need to make transparent aluminium.
