When Timothee Boitouzet studied architecture in Japan, where buildings must survive earthquakes, understood that the next intelligent material could be what humans have used for thousands of years: wood.
“In France, we build more with concrete and stone than with wood”he said. “When I came into contact with Japanese building culture I understood how to build fantastic structures with wood. This material that we consider anything but innovative is actually super intelligent. The true material of the future. This is what linked me to the transparent and augmented wood project.”
In 2016, Boitouzet founded in France woodoo, a company science of materials based in Paris. Woodoo modifies wood to give it new properties. His goal is to transform the construction industry by replacing steel with wood, for example.
Unlike other building materials, such as stone or concrete which contains sand, the wood is a resource renewable, making it a sustainable building material, he said Boitouzet.
We manage trees intelligently
Building more with trees offers both an opportunity and a responsibility. The opportunity is to help curb the construction industry's large carbon footprint, which is accelerating climate change. A recent report from the World Green Building Council estimates that 11% of global emissions of carbon comes from construction materials and processes throughout the entire life cycle of the building. Since trees contain carbon, the use of wood in buildings is a way to store carbon. If you want to make wood increased a material of the future responsibility is to manage the use of trees wisely, taking care to plant (and plant many) more specimens of how many they are used for construction.
Transparent wood, a turning point in materials
By extracting lignin from wood, the substance that makes up its cell walls, and replacing it cnot one type specific polymer, wood becomes new transparent material. “It's weatherproof, more fireproof, three to five times stronger. And then it's transparent,” says Boitouzet.
Don't underestimate this property: Thanks to the features of the polymer added to replace lignin, the light passes through the wood and opens up a world of possible applications.
Augmented reality, “augmented” wood
So far, car manufacturers have shown the greatest interest in its transparent wood.
Currently, through a project called Woodoo Augmented Wood, the company is working on integrating electronics into its “touch” wood, through collaboration with industry partners. The material of the future, which transmits light, will become an integral part of particular "tactile dashboards" in cars, panels that will incorporate controls and displays.
Woodoo sees the automotive industry as a gateway to bring its products to market, while introducing wood products that are lighter and produce fewer emissions than traditional panels.
Boitouzet isn't the only one excited by the possibilities wood offers. Lars Berglund, professor of wood and composite materials at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, found that there are many uses for woods transparent and resistant.
“It's an area that needs a lot of creativity to innovate, because people have been working on wood technology for hundreds of years,” Berglund said.
While other research has mostly tried to address his shortcomings, such as his sensitivity to water, he and his team does they are focused on other features. Their focus is on the use of transparent wood for engineering applications.
The prof. Berglund uses wood as a model for nanotechnology: how Boitouzet eliminates lignin, introduces a polymer and adds other technologies to expand functionality and make the material transparent.
The luminous ceiling
The application currently studied by Berglund's team is that of incorporate points quantum technologies in wood to create light-emitting diodes (LEDs). “The idea is to have, for example, a wooden ceiling that lights up entirely”he said.
Unlike a punctual light, the light of transparent wood is diffused, more natural and comfortable to observe, says the professor. Berglund. The points quantum are one collection of semiconductor atoms, a few nanometers wide, that glow when exposed to UV light.
These panels are just one of many possible applications for transparent wood as a material of the future.
Wood can also form the basis for electrochromic windows. “Smart windows” that can block light when electricity passes through them.
Wooden drums
Berglund believes that this new generation wood can also be used in the energy sector. “We can improve the efficiency (of solar cells) because the dispersion of light (inside the wood) makes it travel a longer path: in other words you can absorb more energy”he said.
The use of a changing material phase instead of a polymer to replace lignin it transforms wood into a storage device energy. During the day, this “wooden battery” can absorb heat, but at night, as temperatures cool, the phase-change material crystallizes, releasing heat.
The challenge: scalability and environment
“How do you go from processing in the lab, where you have tight control over your nanostructure, to something that can be done on an industrial scale?” asks the professor. Berglund. Scalability and in general the search for business partners are a problem for every new one development, and transparent wood is no exception.
Another crucial mission is to make augmented wood even more ecological. A way to do it would be to conserve as much lignin as possible, instead of discarding it. “If you remove it, you are adding a chemical step that costs energy and requires solvents”Berglund says.
For this the his team is focusing on using a greener polymer in materials. “So far the ones used have been petroleum-based to better bind the wood, but now we are working with a bio-based polymer.”
