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Transparent wood could be the window of the future
- rightbyte 6y ago"The wood is then penetrated with a synthetic polymer called polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), creating a product that is virtually transparent." Not as exciting as the headline suggested ... plastics with wood fibers as mesh.
- Zekio 6y agoI wonder how it will handle direct sunlight for a prolonged period then
- murgindrag 6y agoI think the trick might be outer pane of glass, inner pane of non-glass. Glass would cut UV and handle the elements. Wood would be safer and insulate better.
- morcheeba 6y agoYou'd want the inner pane to be actual glass, too, so you can clean it with water or handle humidity. But at that point, the gap in a double-paned glass will insulate better. I wonder if you could sandwich this in to one piece, like automotive glass -- glass/wood/glass?
- hammock 6y ago"Wood fibers" might as well be plastic anyway... See also rayon aka "bamboo" or PLA corn-based plastics, etc
- rdw 6y agoIt being a plastic raises a few questions: - Is it petroleum-based? Looks like the answer is no. [1] - What's the durability? PVA seems to be very water-soluble [2] - How's the scratch resistance? I wasn't able to find a source. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvinyl_alcohol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvinyl_alcohol [2] https://www.cfsanappsexternal.fda.gov/scripts/fdcc/?set=GRASNotices&id=767 https://www.cfsanappsexternal.fda.gov/scripts/fdcc/?set=GRAS...
- jws 6y agoWhat's the durability? PVA seems to be very water-soluble In section 4 "Experimental Section", which is oddly behind section 3 "Conclusions", you will find that unless protected by a layer of paint, the material is severely weakened by humidity and subject to swelling and deformation when soaked with water.
- bigbubba 6y ago> Is it petroleum-based? Looks like the answer is no. [1] Are you sure? From that link: "PVA is prepared by hydrolysis of polyvinyl acetate" Follow that and you'll find: "Polyvinyl acetate is prepared by the polymerization of vinyl acetate monomer (free radical vinyl polymerization of the monomer vinyl acetate)." Which leads to "The major industrial route involves the reaction of ethylene and acetic acid with oxygen in the presence of a palladium catalyst.[6]" And finally: "Ethylene is produced by several methods in the petrochemical industry. A primary method is steam cracking (SC) where hydrocarbons and steam are heated to 750–950 °C." PVA seems to be made from fossil fuels (oil, coal, or natural gas) when manufactured at industrial scale, though Wikipedia does a good job of obscuring this. The Wikipedia page mentions that North Korea produces it because it doesn't require oil but they make it with coal instead, which isn't mentioned on that page. The section on environmental considerations mentions only that it's nontoxic and biodegrades, nothing about where it comes from. (Do the fossil fuel / chemical industries have a history of misleading the public? Hmm..)
- 3646urud 6y agoHonestly, being petroleum based would make me more likely to invest not less. Green energy is garbage unless you're either advantageously situated or enjoy rolling blackouts and meanwhile the developed world is going to fight the developing world mass adopting nuclear tech tooth and nail. So oil is going to be around awhile and by extension its presence is a good signal for supply chain reliability.
- Apofis 6y agoCan't you get ethylene from plants like corn?
- valine 6y agoNileRed on youtube has a cool video detailing the steps to create transparent wood. His result isn’t quite as clear as in the article but the process seems similar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1H-323d838 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1H-323d838
- jolmg 6y agoInstead of comparing it to glass, it might be better to compare it to other plastic materials used for windows. Here's a glass vs. plastic SE Q/A that might be worth reading for context: https://engineering.stackexchange.com/questions/7408/why-do-glass-windows-still-exist-why-havent-they-been-replaced-by-plastics https://engineering.stackexchange.com/questions/7408/why-do-...
- EugeneOZ 6y agoBut what is wrong with glass? I think we have no shortage of sand.
- s5300 6y agoHmm... Bringing this up because seeing your comment rung a bell about something I read a year or so ago now... Google "world sand shortage" Maybe there's more to it than what immediately meets the eye, but it does seem like there's a bit of a shortage.
- zizee 6y agoI think that is the special* type of sand required for concrete production. * Concrete requires coarse grains, which are found in river beds and beaches. A lot of the worlds sand is in deserts, which has fine grains due to its age / years of tumbling.
- pvaldes 6y ago1) use fine sand to make tempered glass 2) break it 3) Now use those small pieces of broken glass as if they were coarse sand to make concrete. Or even better recicle all those old cracked car panes lying in the dumpster. Problem solved. Maybe you could even obtain cool semitransparent concrete, if you polish the finished stuff. I dunno. Would be cool stuff in any case.
- corty 6y agoAlso, it is perfectly possible to make the necessary qualities of sand from coarser rocks. It is just more expensive. So the great sand shortage is just a shortage of cheap sand.
- Retric 6y agoWind blown sand you find in the Sahara is fine for glassmaking. The shortage is really about a specific type of sand useful for it’s mechanical not chemical properties.
- sabellito 6y ago
- coding123 6y agoNo mention of sound transmission on this or the stackexchange link someone posted.
- MrStonedOne 6y agoAnybody know of any studies or details on how it handles uv a/b/c transmission? mainly uvb vs glass.
- corty 6y agoPLA is opaque for UV: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/UV-and-visible-light-transmission-of-PLA-and-PLA-BHT-films_fig2_232382940 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/UV-and-visible-light-tra... So should be similar to window glass in that respect.
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoBut is it rigid enough so it wouldn't warp in sunlight etc? And give a rippled image through the window?
- tdeck 6y ago> unlike glass, it bends or splinters instead of shattering. That sounds incredibly dangerous. Shattering is a safety feature of modern glass, so you don't have huge jagged chunks to cut an artery if you break it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_glass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_glass
- marvindanig 6y agoAlso this: > Could looking through trees be the view to a greener future? No. The opposite. It means more harvesting of the trees to yield the raw materials that is wood to produce such a glass.
- reaperducer 6y agoI'd rather see us planting more trees to make glass than building bigger strip mines in the forest to dig up sand for glass.
- zepto 6y agoStrip mines in the forest for sand?
- reaperducer 6y agoYes. I've seen plenty of sand mines, and not one of them was on a beach. Too much water. The mining happens inland.
- christophilus 6y agoEh. Forestry can be sustainably harvested. If incentives are set up correctly, I could see this being a net win.
- marvindanig 6y agoEh, no. That's exactly what the advocates of pulping industry would like you to believe. Leaving aside the pollution of the rivers and the land and the air over the years, replacing a forest like the Amazon (example) and the ecosystem within cannot be measured in terms dollar incentives to an industry. Sustainable harvesting is much like clean coal. The math doesn't actually work, but the advocacy sure does. ;-)
- paultopia 6y agoI'm still holding out for Star Trek's transparent aluminum.
- zdragnar 6y agoThat line always bothered me, because that's pretty much all sapphires are. Also, gorilla glass. Fancy, but also way less fancy sounding than transparent aluminum.
- timw4mail 6y agoThat's like saying charcoal is pretty much diamonds. In terms of fundamental ingredients, yes, but it's not quite that simple.
- DenisM 6y agoThere you go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DduO1fNzV4w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DduO1fNzV4w
- caterama 6y agoNitpicking the 25000 metric tons of CO2 quoted in glass manufacturing is essentially inconsequential. Whereas according to [1] aviation produced 915 million metric tonnes of CO2 in 2019 and estimates globally 43 billion tonnes of CO2 produced. Basically, the carbon offset from glass manufacturing by using transparent wood is a rounding error in the grand scheme of things and doesn't even mention the carbon cost of the procedure to create transparent wood, which likely negates the aforementioned offset. Smells like a classic academic attempt to hype the importance of their research. The far more compelling case for this transparent wood seems like the improved insulation. What kind of carbon savings would we see in terms of heating / cooling if we weatherized homes using it? Now you're talking about year after year carbon savings! That's the kind of numbers I would have liked to see in this article, not some paltry appeal to 0.00005% emission savings in glass manufacturing. [1] https://www.atag.org/facts-figures.html https://www.atag.org/facts-figures.html
- reaperducer 6y agoSo because glass manufacturing isn't the biggest source of pollution, we shouldn't do anything about it? That's like saying we shouldn't bother doing anything about the toxic waste in your local lake because the oceans are still a mess. And let's not save endangered wildflowers until we get the pandas sorted out. To quote an internet cliché: Why not both?
- sushisource 6y agoThis is a less-than-compelling retort. The point isn't "don't do it", the point is "well, why?". OP even admits the more compelling thing here would be to talk about how it's an improvement on glass thermally. The pollution savings are indeed unimportant, but make for good clickbait. That's the annoying part.
- TimTheTinker 6y agoPremature optimization is the root of all evil. —Donald Knuth
- hnracer 6y ago
- rudedogg 6y ago> Switching to transparent wood could prove to be cost efficient as well. It is approximately five times more thermally efficient than glass, cutting energy costs. This is the most exciting part to me. If you’ve ever done a Manual J (load calculation) for an HVAC system, it’s amazing how much energy is lost through windows. Energy.gov says 25-30%.
- iainmerrick 6y agoDoesn’t triple glazing largely address that?
- TheRealPomax 6y agotldr: PVA is the window of the future, and it turns out that in additional literally anything else, we can also use highly bleached balsa wood to the point where infusing it with PVA makes it transparent enough. Slightly longer: also, PVA literally dissolves in water, so this is in fact an absolutely stupid idea unless you're also going to coat the resultant panes in chemicals that don't just act as water proofing but are also scratch proof. None of this is even remotely better than using actual glass.
- lurquer 6y agoA quick fix to many of the problems you point out would be to coat it on both sides with a thin shell of transparent silica and... uh... oh, never mind.
- TheRealPomax 6y ago=D
- stevespang 6y agoBalsa wood used in the research is rarely available in larger than 4 inch widths, if so , it typically is joined or laminated together (weak spots).
- RickJWagner 6y agoOh my goodness. The splinters will be horrible.
- dirtnugget 6y agoGlass however is extremely durable and requires no maintenance. When it is manufactured cleanly without any air or other materials intruding during production, it can withstand rain and ice for hundreds of years. I do not see this wood being able to achieve the same durability without intensive care and repainting which will probably cancel out the ecological effects quite soon.
- sschueller 6y agoWhy do we need a replacement for glass? Seems to me like a very good material other than the energy required to make it and somewhat limited supply of sand.