Generally solid wood is a good choice for many projects due to three key reasons:
1. Cost
2. Workability; can be worked with hand tools and power tools, glues easily and strong
3. Water safe for years with no significant prep work
Steel is a lot stronger per pound, but to join it you either need to use mechanical fasteners or weld it. This requires expensive ($300+) specialized equipment like a welder and/or drill press. Wooden boats are generally good from 15-20 years without major renovations, and are servic
I'd also wonder how 'eco friendly' this is. Heated sodium hydroxide baths followed by pressure and more heat. Lots of extra joules and eco unfriendly chemicals in there. I suppose it could be recycled easily but so can steel and aluminum.
There's a reason you should have read the fucking article.
Hu says that his study’s main finding is that removing the right amount of lignin is key to maximizing performance. In his team’s experiments, removing too much of the polymer resulted in less-dense, brittle wood, suggesting that some leftover lignin is helpful in binding the cellulose fibres when they are hot-pressed. The wood was strongest when roughly 45% of the lignin was removed.
Decades? Really? People have been firing wood and embedding carbon into its surfaces for at least 400,000 years. This author is off by at least four orders of magnitude.
There is also a summary here [sciencenews.org] at Sciences News.
Generally solid wood is a good choice for many projects due to three key reasons:
1. Cost
2. Workability; can be worked with hand tools and power tools, glues easily and strong
3. Water safe for years with no significant prep work
Steel is a lot stronger per pound, but to join it you either need to use mechanical fasteners or weld it. This requires expensive ($300+) specialized equipment like a welder and/or drill press. Wooden boats are generally good from 15-20 years without major renovations, and are servic
I'd also wonder how 'eco friendly' this is. Heated sodium hydroxide baths followed by pressure and more heat. Lots of extra joules and eco unfriendly chemicals in there. I suppose it could be recycled easily but so can steel and aluminum.
There's a reason you should have read the fucking article.
Hu says that his study’s main finding is that removing the right amount of lignin is key to maximizing performance. In his team’s experiments, removing too much of the polymer resulted in less-dense, brittle wood, suggesting that some leftover lignin is helpful in binding the cellulose fibres when they are hot-pressed. The wood was strongest when roughly 45% of the lignin was removed.
TFS says:
> Attempts to strengthen wood go back decades.
Decades? Really? People have been firing wood and embedding carbon into its surfaces for at least 400,000 years. This author is off by at least four orders of magnitude.