[HN Gopher] Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel an... ___________________________________________________________________ Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and plastic Author : Tomte Score : 211 points Date : 2021-10-21 14:52 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.cell.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.cell.com) | nico_h wrote: | Can't read the article. How energy efficient and environmentally | friendly is the hardening process compared to making steel? And | is it a "in 20 years" thing again, like all new battery tech? | martythemaniak wrote: | A general note: in a world of super cheap solar or wind, energy | efficiency doesn't matter as much. It's cheap because In many | instances, the end product is the "battery". | | A desalination plant can be run when the sun is out and the end | product (clean water) can be stored and used. In this instance, | the hardening step stores energy in the final product. Just run | that step at the right time. | zdragnar wrote: | This kind of thinking is why cryptocurrency miners are | setting up shop at substations. They get severely discounted | electricity from the utilities, in exchange for ramping up | and down their servers to keep the grid load balanced. | | Except, of course, cryptocurrency isn't nearly as useful as, | say, desalinated water. | vkou wrote: | > Except, of course, cryptocurrency isn't nearly as useful | as, say, desalinated water. | | I'd like to expand on this a bit. | | The major problem with cryptocurrency is that the value of | a typical coin seems to be ~ the cost of electricity needed | to mine one. | | This means that a crypto miner turns $1 of energy into ~$1 | of wealth. | | As far as business plans go, this is an absolutely horrific | use of energy. Nearly no other business produces so little | wealth, for such a high energy input. | | The economy in general, by the way, turns $1 of energy into | ~$17 of wealth. [1] | | [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36754#: | ~:tex.... | zdragnar wrote: | That's why they are pursuing deals with electric | companies. In exchange for helping with loaf balancing, | they get electricity well below market rates. They are | making a killing. | | Everyone who buys the coins are just helping to remove | the pandemic stimulus from the economy, which I suppose | is its own sort of good. | orasis wrote: | "Except, of course, cryptocurrency isn't nearly as useful | as, say, desalinated water." | | Heresy!! | jillesvangurp wrote: | Not sure if this is exactly the same but cross laminated timber | (CLT) is already being used for constructing all kinds of | buildings. | | Executive summary of its qualities: | | - Stronger and lighter than concrete. Think thinner floors and | walls but with similar strength and load-bearing capability; | less tonnes of material to move around. That alone is a big | advantage. | | - Several buildings across the world already exist; more are | being planned. So, its beyond the proof of concept stage but | still early days in terms of adoption. | | - A few ambitious skyscrapers are being planned that will be | built using it. So, instead of steel and concrete, these would | be mostly made out of wood. Needless to say these will be very | prestigious buildings; which should count as an advantage as | well. | | - While it uses glue, it's not nearly as much as e.g. MDF; in | the order of a few percent. It's mostly wood basically. The | cross lamination is what gives it its strength. E.g. toxicity | associated with MDF and similar materials is not much of a | concern. | | - It's quite safe from e.g. a fire safety point of view and | should also be usable in e.g. earthquake zones like Tokyo | (which has a 350 CLT building planned). It's also quite durable | (e.g. rot & humidity). | | - It's a nice way to capture carbon, obviously. As opposed to | dumping massive amounts of carbon needed for e.g. concrete | production and transport. So, very environmentally friendly. | Also after demolition (it's wood basically). | | - You can work it using traditional wood working tools. | Hammers, nails, saws, etc. | | - You can do a lot of this offsite as well and ship prefab | components to the construction site. So, there is less waste on | site of material that needs to be removed after. Existing | construction work involves extensive use of power tools and | produces enormous amounts of waste. | | - As a side effect of that: faster & more efficient | construction. This is a big plus point as construction sites in | busy cities are very disruptive. | | - Short term its somewhat more expensive than traditional | construction methods (concrete). But long term there is plenty | of potential for cost reductions due to scaling, learning | effects, etc. Large scale CLT production simply does not yet | exist. | | - The wood needed to produce it could feasibly be produced | using sustainable foresting. But obviously that would be a | sector that would need to be scaled up. However, if done right, | that in itself is a good thing. It would basically mean | countries investing in sustainable forestry, which has all | sorts of nice side effects in terms of carbon capture, nature, | and jobs. | | The biggest hurdles are not so much technical feasibility but | just changing an industry used to a particular way of working | along with its supply chains to work in different ways using | different supply chains. That kind of thing does not happen | overnight. But with the advantages listed above, there is | plenty of interest in this. | clairity wrote: | also, CLT can be combined with steel to create stronger load- | bearing members, while also being more aesthetically | pleasing, effectively replacing concrete for class A | construction of tall buildings. | finder83 wrote: | Looks like giant plywood. I'm actually really curious how it | handles moisture content changes. Does it crack and is it | dimensionally as stable as plywood? | jillesvangurp wrote: | Well, the short answer is that it is being used in Tokyo to | build a sky scraper that is 350m high. You would not do | that with plywood. Also, Tokyo has earth quakes, high | humidity and typhoons. So, apparently it's up to that job | and if it can work there, it can work pretty much anywhere. | toast0 wrote: | > - You can do a lot of this offsite as well and ship prefab | components to the construction site. So, there is less waste | on site of material that needs to be removed after. Existing | construction work involves extensive use of power tools and | produces enormous amounts of waste. | | Prefab/offsite fabrication can be done with most building | types, it's always a tradeoff of many factors: transportation | costs generally go up, onsite labor and onsite construction | time goes down, offsite labor and construction time becomes a | thing, precision usually goes up since the offsite | construction is often in a more controlled environment, site | specific adjustments can be more difficult depending on the | specific methods. If there are standardized pieces, that can | reduce overall time to complete a project if there's some | amount of warehousing rather than building just in time; | offsite construction may also speed up projects when there's | more capacity to build components in a factory setting(s) | than with onsite labor. | | For concrete offsite fabrication, you're looking for words | like 'precast' and 'tilt-up'. | KennyBlanken wrote: | The biggest problem with CLT and other engineered wood beams | is that it fails extremely quickly in a fire. | | I've heard firefighters talk about how their departments are | considering scaling back entries on newer homes because those | beams can fail so early in a fire when the binder fails. | gamblor956 wrote: | This study disagrees with your claims. https://www.fpl.fs.f | ed.us/documnts/pdf2012/fpl_2012_dagenais... | KennyBlanken wrote: | A study conducted by two fucking industry trade groups | and the USDA Forest Products lab? | | > FPInnovations is a private not-for-profit R&D | organization that specializes in the creation of | solutions that accelerate the growth of the Canadian | forest sector and its affiliated industries to enhance | their global competitiveness | | Did you read the fucking introduction? It's an industry- | paid-for shill study: | | > Financial support for the development of this US | edition of the CLT Handbook was provided by the Bi- | National Softwood Council, US Forest Products Laboratory | and Forest Innovation Investment. Financial support for | conducting the fire resistance test series on cross- | laminated timber (CLT) was provided by Natural Resources | Canada (NRCan) under the Transformative Technologies | Program, which was created to identify and accelerate the | development and introduction of products such as CLT in | North America. FPInnovations expresses its thanks to its | industry members Julie Frappier, Eng. from Nordic | Engineered Wood and Andre Morf from Structurlam, Dr. | Nourredine Benichou of the National Research Council of | Canada, NRCan (Canadian Forest Service), the Provinces of | British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, | Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland | and Labrador, and the Yukon Territory for their | continuing guidance and financial support. | | I guess it must be the steel industry planting | astroturfers in reddit comments pretending to be | firefighters talking about how they're seeing new | construction buildings with engineered structural wood | fold stunningly fast, huh? | pwr-electronics wrote: | HW is something you can do to one piece of wood, while CLT is | something you can do to combine multiple pieces of wood. So | you could have a HW CLT, for example. | ethbr0 wrote: | A blocker to deployment would be getting building codes | updated to permit use. From memory, wood was only approved | for 3 story or less structures in most of the US. And | building codes tend to be updated extremely slowly and | conservatively. | jillesvangurp wrote: | Bureaucracy like that is always a short term obstacle. US | building codes are not much of a quality or technical | challenge though if you consider that Tokyo has typhoons | and earthquakes and is planning a 350m skyscraper with CLT. | I'd say anything suitable for that, ought to be acceptable | for construction in most of the US. | | Compared to the damage that hurricanes do in the US to | flimsy plywood buildings, it will probably more than be | able to compete with that. Building standards are perhaps | slow to change but not necessarily very advanced in the US. | But you are right that this type of change is slow to | implement. | the_other wrote: | When Greta talks to the public sphere about government | failing its climate responsibility, this is the kind of | stuff she's talking about. | | It's easy to assume we "just" need subsidies and incentives | (or the ending of same) for "green" solutions, but the | problem is much larger than that. We need to be operating | "sustainably" at every level, in between departments, | across legislation. | | If regulation is blocking us, get it changed. If changing | legislation is too slow, refactor. We must go faster. | spfzero wrote: | Shouldn't we make sure it's a good idea first? | mywittyname wrote: | It's easy to be gung ho about having _other people_ use | inspiring, untested technology. But it 's not so fun when | you're the teaching example for why regulations are slow | moving. | | "Sorry your house fell down, but we never thought to test | this stuff at temperatures _that_ low. I mean, we thought | Texas was a hot place! " | clairity wrote: | from what i remember, it's up to 6 stories in some parts of | the country. i think it's other aspects of the zoning | and/or building code that tends to limit it to 3 stories-- | often podium style, with a concrete bunker foundation for | cars with 3 stick-built stories on top. | | for the record, i dislike this style because it reserves | the most valuable square footage--the ground floor--to | cars. the cars should go underground, allowing the ground | floor to be used for human purposes--ideally mixed use, | even just publicly accessible studio space for creatives. | jessaustin wrote: | Lake of the Ozarks was in the news last year for our | aggressive disdain for covid precautions. The shoreline | is occupied by many 4-, 5-, and 6-story stick-built | condominium buildings. I've never heard of one falling | over, but sometimes they do burn... | shawn-butler wrote: | This is (was?) the largest mass timber structure in the | US. I think it is 7 stories. | | https://structurecraft.com/projects/t3-minneapolis | clairity wrote: | yah, that's an awesome building, especially the exposed | beam interior. it's interesting that they used nail- | laminated timber, which is just regular lumber close- | packed and nailed together with plywood, in place of | concrete floors/ceilings. according to the site, they've | moved on to using dowels instead of nails for this. | ahevia wrote: | The summary states the process of making hardened wood is more | energy efficient, but I also wonder how long this would take to | scale. Seems great for small operations (like the bench at a | local park), but might require regulatory changes to use in any | large projects. | joshvm wrote: | Steel is incredibly energy intensive. It's not unusual for | casting plants to have their own dedicated power stations. | Traditionally you'd use coke to melt things (well, smelt iron | ore), nowadays with induction/arc furnaces you can in theory | use green energy, but it's still a huge amount of power. | kfprt wrote: | Usually 'hardened wood' is just wood where the air has been | replaced with epoxy. The problem is epoxy is expensive and not | different enough from a pure plastic. | dymk wrote: | I think what you're describing is more often referred to as | "stabilized wood", and doesn't involve the "densification" | process as described by the infographic. | | I'm not willing to pay for the article to read it, but it seems | like this is pretty different from epoxy stabilized wood (which | isn't particularly hard). | fhood wrote: | Stabilized wood is essentially as hard as whatever it's | stabilized with. But yeah, the interesting concept is the | densification. I dunno about replacing steel, but if soft | fast growing woods can be converted into something closer to | a hardwood, and the volume lost and extra time still puts it | out ahead, that is pretty exciting. | oliwarner wrote: | The graph in that composite diagram is really bothering me. | | Their "hardened wood" product is 23 times harder than "natural" | basswood. When dried, basswood (aka lime) is an extremely soft | hardwood. It's very popular with novice turners and hand carvers. | When green (natural?) you can carve it with a stone. | | Species matters. Lignum vitae is 20 times harder than basswood. | beambot wrote: | Species matters, but so does availability. Lignum vitae is an | endangered species, so it's not really a renewable alternative | at the scale humanity requires. | icedistilled wrote: | fun fact, you can grow Lignum Vitae in SoCal in certain | areas, not just in Florida. San Diego would probably grow | lignum vitae well because it seems to like the random humid | weeks in Los Angeles and just exists for the rest of the year | meepmorp wrote: | I think the point of using basswood as a reference is to | demonstrate the effectiveness of the hardening process by using | a very soft wood. Separately, basswood is fairly quick growing, | making it a decent candidate for commercialization of the whole | technology. | fhood wrote: | Not really "separately", pretty much as a rule hardwoods grow | very slowly. Pretty much any fast growing wood is going to be | soft. | meepmorp wrote: | Basswood is a hardwood because it's a flowering tree | (angiosperm); softwoods come from conifers (gymnosperms). | | Balsa is a hardwood, too. | dreamlayers wrote: | It is possible to make a knife out of lignum vitae: | https://www.solidsmack.com/fabrication/lignum-vitae-ironwood... | | So I guess the achievement here is that commonly available | inexpensive wood can be made as hard as rare expensive wood. | oliwarner wrote: | It's not cheap though, all the bloody carvers get it. Not | that any wood is cheap at the moment. | | I think they might have just been highlighting basswood | because it's so soft --softer than many softwoods-- and so | the outcome shows a much bigger improvement. | | Show me pine/spruce, poplar and oak. | ksec wrote: | For people who are interested in Timber Building / Construction. | | The World's Tallest Timber Buildings [1], | | Why Finland is Building a Wood City [2]. | | Why There Are No Timber Skyscrapers [3], | | Why All Buildings Should Be Timber [4] | | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3JqSsc8ZKk | | [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4QYkEpw9pA | | [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_8LlcuV0gc | | [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieBVNgMkcpw | turtlebits wrote: | All of these sound good, but the caveat is that they are wood + | epoxy/resin/glue. | frosted-flakes wrote: | Why is that a caveat? | tomtomftomtom wrote: | Fauci funded COVID-19: https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/nih- | admits-funding-gain-f... | hammock wrote: | Here is a non-paywalled description of the process. | https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a167588... | | >Lignin is what makes wood rigid and brown. Somewhat | counterintuitively, Hu and his team removed the wood's lignin | polymers in order to make their wood even stronger. | | >The lingin removal allowed the team to compress the wood under a | mild heat of around 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Without the lignin | binding together the wood's cells, the scientists were able to | make its cellulose fibers very tightly packed. | | >When the fibers are jammed together...the wood's fibers begin to | form hydrogen bonds. | | So essentially they found a different (more natural-sounding for | sure) way to polymerize cellulose. Right now bamboo or sugar cane | are broken down and polymerized all the time via a different | process to make plant-based plastics, rayon, etc. | panzagl wrote: | Are the long term effects any less detrimental than other | polymerized materials, or is this basically another way to make | plastic? | ryanmarsh wrote: | "Hardened wood" = wood cellulose + glue | westurner wrote: | From "Hemp Wood: A Comprehensive Guide" | https://www.buildwithrise.com/stories/hempwood-the-sustainab... : | | > _HempWood is priced competitively to similar cuts of black | walnut. You can purchase 72 " HempWood boards for between $13 and | $40 as of the date of publishing. HempWood also sells carving | blocks, cabinets, and kits to make your own table. Prices for | table kits range from $175 to $300._ Jul 5, 2021 [...] | | > Is Hemp Wood Healthy? _Due to its organic roots and soy-based | adhesive, hemp wood is naturally non-toxic and doesn 't contain | VOCs, making it a healthier choice for interior building._ | | > _Hemp wood has also been tested to have a decreased likelihood | of warping and twisting. Its design is free of any of the knots | common in other hardwoods to reduce wood waste._ | | https://hempwood.com/ | | FWIU, hempcrete - hemp hurds and sustainable limestone - must be | framed; possibly with Hemp Wood, which is stronger than spec | lumber of the same dimensions. | | FWIU, Hemp batting insulation is soaked in sodium to meet code. | | Hopefully the production and distribution processes for these | carbon sinks keeps net negative carbon in the black. | kfprt wrote: | I want to like hempwood but the price needs to come down. | Hopefully it will as production increases. | westurner wrote: | What are the limits? Input costs, current economy of scale? | kfprt wrote: | Scale, reportedly. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qy6awPeric | westurner wrote: | What an excellent video overview! | | That does look like there's still a lot of manual labor | in the depicted production process... Automation and | clean energy. | jaclaz wrote: | Of course I cannot access the full text article, but the claim | that this HW can be sharpened and become "3 times sharper" than | "most commercial table knives" sounds not very scientific. | moron4hire wrote: | Sharpness can be quantified, and most table cutlery is probably | made from 420 stainless steel. Not a particularly great steel, | but very common. | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: | Since "table knife" means the typical dull cutlery knives (as | opposed to e.g. steak or kitchen knives), I have no doubt that | wood (hardened or not) can be sharpened like that. | killfauci wrote: | Fauci needs to be arrested today. | | NIH Admits they funded GoF Research at Wuhan. | | https://www.nationalreview.com/news/nih-admits-to-funding-ga... | dd36 wrote: | I've seen this before. It starts getting curious at the "chemical | treatment" step. | Animats wrote: | They're taking the lignite out of the cellulose, and then | compressing the resulting soft mesh into a harder material. A | few years ago, "transparent wood" was a thing. That was taking | out the lignite, and putting some transparent plastic in. | | Not clear what's special about their compression step. | dan353hehe wrote: | The heated compression step allows the cellulose to form | hydrogen bonds with other cellulose fibers, which strengthens | the wood and makes the epoxy redundant. | catskul2 wrote: | Can we all stop for a second and appreciate the "Graphical | Abstract"? IMO it's great, and every paper that where such a | thing is reasonable should have one! | account_b wrote: | As far as I know, the Earth's surface cannot meet humanity's | current need for hydrocarbons, polymers or building materials. | Biomass production is limited by sun energy and most importantly | phosphorus and nitrogen cycles. Even hundred of years ago, people | were already exhausting regenerative capacities and back then | there were only around half a billion humans living on all this | planet. Petrol chemistry and mineral exploitation saved Earth's | ecosphere short term. But obviously that can't last forever. | | It's nice to have functional carbon sinks and all, but we will | never replace even the majority of petrol, metallic and mineral | based production of today with biomass derived alternatives. The | surface and geological cycles cannot support that. And food is | priority. If phosphorus rock is gone, we're fucked for good. | | _We need to cut down_. | vimy wrote: | We need to mine in space. | jandrese wrote: | Good luck finding an oil rich asteroid. Or an asteroid with | lush virgin hardwood forests. | | As far as I know there isn't a shortage of iron ore. This | hardened wood is solving a problem that we don't have yet. | mikeg8 wrote: | I believe one of the problems it solves is that steel has a | tendency to erode over time. Hence major infrastructure | failures. If structural elements can be made to the same | strength as steel, using HW, which will not erode at the | same pace of steel, than the expected lifetime of a | structure increases and that is solving a real problem. | account_b wrote: | AFAIK it does solve a problem with steel, tho: Energy | expenditure of production. You cannot make steel with heat | generated electrically. At least not directly. Energy dense | fossil hydrocarbons are powering furnaces today. You may | replace that with generated hydrogen, but I am not sure the | math checks out on a global scale. | bhhaskin wrote: | This. If we want to continue human progress then space is | really the only option. | mikeg8 wrote: | Really, the _only_ option? You must be joking. | account_b wrote: | No, that's still ignorant of ecological processes, I think. | We need to adapt culturally/economically. | | What do you think happens, if we continue as we do, but | assume "infinte" ressourses? You would still exhaust | regenerative/reparative capacities, accumulate chemical | byproducts and waste - shift balances. See nitrification of | water bodies. | | The core problem is our lazyness to recapture uncompressed | former dense resources; to operate closed cycle. | | And well, I have my doubts we can establish the extend of | space exploitation to meet our current e.g. global | phosphorus needs _within_ the next 30 years. Is phosphate | rock even plenty around in asteroids? | goohle wrote: | First, we need to marsoform Terra to make mining in space | cheaper than mining at Earth. | dirtyid wrote: | Do you have any recommended readings or search terms to explore | this subject? | engineer_22 wrote: | ->We need to cut down. | | A potential alternative survival strategy is to develop your | country as fast as possible. Develop whatever technology will | be necessary to win a potential future war fought over the | scarcest resources. This development oriented strategy will | probably consume a lot of resources, but survival is worth | taking risks for. | jnmandal wrote: | This is pretty clear to me too. We survive on stored energy | borrowed from the past. Energy and growth are basically finite. | We do need to cut down. | | We also need to develop tech (weather technique or technology) | to reconstitute waste and refuse into the inputs for our food, | buildings, transportation, etc. | account_b wrote: | > We survive on stored energy borrowed from the past. | | It's worse than that: We fully rely on borrowed _time_! | | Natural geological cycles to restore surface phosphorus span | many thousands of years. Our _current agriculture_ (food | production) critically depends on mineral phosphorus, which | may be exhausted in just four or five decades. And we retain | _none_ of that, but flush our soils into the oceans | (partially through the toilet, literally). No phosphorus, no | food. I wish everybody knew about peak phosphorus. (It 's | also a geopolitical near future issue as almost all phosphate | rock is located in Morocco...) | | > We also need to develop tech (weather technique or | technology) to reconstitute waste and refuse into the inputs | for our food, buildings, transportation, etc. | | Yes! We also need to collect and recycle human and livestock | feces and urine to prevent mineral loss. Those cannot leak | from the ecosystems anymore - madness! | | Honestly, I think it's possible humanity will _barely_ not | make it, comically, because no one wants to lobby for | collecting people 's shit, while everything else goes full | Star Trek. | korantu wrote: | Does it also mean that using wood at industrial scale is | bad idea? Trees need phosphorus too | [deleted] | mjh2539 wrote: | We have, for all intents and purposes, an unlimited supply of | carbon and iron. Assuming we one day get over our FUD of nuclear | energy (which with the use of breeder reactors is considered a | renewable form of energy), it follows that steel itself can be | considered renewable. | korantu wrote: | And even co2-negative, if made with captured co2 | Gatsky wrote: | (Can't read the damn paper, even with University journal access. | Why is academia so fundamentally stupid? Is it not obvious to a | scientist that when your paper comes out it would be a good idea | for a lot of people to be able to read it? | | Thanks to Cell Press for extracting profit to hold back | scientific progress.) | | Anyway I presume this relates to the group's previous work, where | they boil the wood in sodium hydroxide to leach the lignin and | then compress it. The final product doesn't have any resin | additives, so is not a composite. | raman162 wrote: | I wonder how fire resistant hardened wood is. I can imagine | cities like Chicago having a hard time to use wood in commercial | buildings with history launch as "The Great Chicago Fire"[0] | | [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chicago_Fire | jccalhoun wrote: | From what I've read, they are pretty fire resistant because | they are dense and so will char and burn slowly. There have | been a couple articles on here in the last couple years about | "wooden skyscrapers" and they have made that argument. | OldHand2018 wrote: | Chicago allows mass timber buildings up to 6 stories, although | a developer has proposed an 80-story mass timber building. So | that guy may do all the work to open the door. | account_b wrote: | I think wood _can_ be quite fire resistant even with | traditional modifications like charring. And it may retain | structural integrity better /longer than steel. I think steel | can become an enemy in a fire quite abruptly. | ostenning wrote: | Whenever I hear about renewable trees I cant help but think how | policy failures often lead to more and more forests being | destroyed. | | Perhaps it would be better if we stop over commodifying trees in | general and try to reduce our reliance on them and hopefully | partitioning them off from the economy could encourage regrowth | hadlock wrote: | Places like Washington State have had replanting programs in | place since well before I was born. In the US we have more | trees now than we did 100 years ago, forestry and forest | management as a problem was solved 50+ years ago. | | There's the issue of disappearing rainforest in the amazon, but | that's largely due to the fact that growing food is a more | valuable use of that land than forest, and has nothing to do | with the economic value of the wood on the land. | zz865 wrote: | I live in a wood framed 5+1. Its great being in renewable wood | building - but the downside is its a huge fire risk. Plus because | of this the sprinkler system is vast - and keeps flooding | apartments. | colonwqbang wrote: | One of the steps to produce it seems to be soaking it in mineral | oil. Maybe I missed something, but it seems pretty strong to call | it renewable if it's made from fossil petroleum. | symby wrote: | I'm sold. Where can I get some of this hardened wood? I would | like to experiment with it and maybe incorporate it into | products. | opwieurposiu wrote: | Most of the sources for this stuff I have found sell it as deck | boards. | | https://store.us.kebony.com/pages/samples | rtkaratekid wrote: | I'm also interested in this | anon_cow1111 wrote: | I have a tiny bit of advice I might be able to lend here, for | experimentation purposes mainly. Regular hardwood can be heat- | treated to increase its density and compression strength | considerably, in the most basic form this can be done at home | by heating it... _slowly_... up to ~400F (typically just | holding it over a hot-plate until it 's light-medium brown. | You'll want a temperature-stable oven for wood more than a cm | or so thick) | | This won't provide the same density this study has achieved, | but it'll give you a quick proof-of concept for next to no | cost. | | In the article I believe they also chemically alter the wood by | removing lignin with a boiling sodium hydroxide solution. | Basically dissolving out the 'dead weight' and leaving more | cellulose, which is what's giving wood most of its strength. | | They do also use physical compression under heat, which | wouldn't be too hard to achieve with mere run to home-depot, | but I'm not sure how much effort you want to put into this as | of now. | symby wrote: | Yeah... I don't want to make this stuff, I want to use this | stuff. | | It would be great to get an understanding of its performance | specs. I may be able to specify hardened wood in place of | steel, aluminum, magnesium machined parts in high-end | ecologically conscious consumer products... but not without | some understanding of the engineering specifications and a | source of material. | tromp wrote: | I'd love some hardwood cutlery. Assuming it's soak-proof, as I | often leave dirty kitchenware to soak before washing it. | fredley wrote: | It's tough to get, it doesn't just grow on trees. | fluxflexer wrote: | The most interesting thing is the Force/Displacement curve. It | shows some plastic deformation even after the breaking point, | which is unusual for ,,hard" Materials. May this just be some | gloryfied Epoxy with wood as filler? | mensetmanusman wrote: | It appears they are relying on the hydrogen bonding in the | cellulose after lignin removal, so it should be >50% wood, i.e. | not an epoxy with wood filler. | nick238 wrote: | That stress/strain curve in the Cell Matter "Graphical | Abstract" is garbage past the point of peak stress. If it's | tested in their double shear jig as shown, once it displaces | significantly (> radius of the nail) the force is more the | pull-out force, basically just the friction between the hole | and the nail surface. Or, the nail might just be digging an | oblong hole in the shear jig. It's maybe interesting, but a | regular stress/strain setup is better to lead with. | | The Nature article has some normal stress/strain curves which | show brittle failure | https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25476/figures/6 | billiam wrote: | I am totally encouraged by this report. The sentence that really | gets me from a companion paper linked below: | | "Cellulose, the main component of wood, has a higher ratio of | strength to density than most engineered materials, like | ceramics, metals, and polymers, but our existing usage of wood | barely touches its full potential." | | It's just a beginning, but a good one. Hard to see HW replacing | the myriad things we use steel or ceramics for, but intriguing. | hammock wrote: | >Widely used hard materials, e.g., alloys and ceramics, are often | nonrenewable and expensive | | Alloys and ceramics are non-renewable? Aren't they pure mineral? | sfink wrote: | I've been intrigued for a while about various modified wood | technologies (eg hardened wood, transparent wood), but I'm always | disappointed because it usually ends up just being a minor | support structure for a very non-wood material (generally epoxy). | This one shows a compression step, so maybe it's different, but | I'd really like more info on whether this is actually renewable | or sustainable in any interesting sense. | | Very reminiscent of the supposedly renewable & sustainable bamboo | products that are anything but. I love bamboo, but flooring | should make you think "plywood" not "waving groves of fast- | growing giant grasses". It's another glue and epoxy thing. | | Update: https://phys.org/news/2021-10-hardened-wooden-knives- | slice-s... is a much better source. | MisterBastahrd wrote: | Reminds me of the one video I saw of this man spraying | different things with some sort of polymer that was virtually | unbreakable. He'd spray a cinderblock wall and then hit it with | a sledgehammer. The wall would break, but the polymer would | hold... so yay? | | That said, It seems like the sort of thing you'd want to spray | asphalt shingles with. | jsilence wrote: | Rhino shield probably | jonpurdy wrote: | Curious about your opinion on bamboo products. I assume you're | referring to modern bamboo desks, shelves, and other items that | are made from Chinese bamboo and made in China. They typically | slice the bamboo grass pieces into ~8 sections, then use | planing machines to create planks*. These are then pressed and | glued together to make products. These products are then | shipped overseas using the same methods as other products. | | If the glue used is either sustainable or they don't use very | much of it, and the bamboo is grown locally, what makes it less | sustainable than using wood? And certainly more less energy- | intensive than steel. | | * I am not a woodworker, don't know terminology. | blacksmith_tb wrote: | Some good photos of the process here[1]. The figure that's | generally quoted for the time it takes for a mature timber | bamboo culm to grow from a shoot to ~20m to be harvested is | 3-5yr. Obviously each one is small compared to a large tree, | but a stand of bamboo can produce a lot. | | 1; https://www.bambooimport.com/en/how-is-bamboo-lumber-made | bartvk wrote: | That's an amazing link, with unadorned and unpolished shots | of the factory where the bamboo lumber is made. Very | interesting. | svachalek wrote: | The usual complaint I see against bamboo products is that | they use hard bamboo that grows like trees, but promote a | sustainable image based on the idea of soft bamboo that grows | like grass. I haven't heard it's less sustainable than wood, | just not any more sustainable. | wrycoder wrote: | Kg of wood per hectare-yr would be a good measure of how | much useful wood is created, and also how much carbon is | locked up in it. | chrisweekly wrote: | Time is a critical factor (ie, the "yr" in your metric). | Bamboo grows _incredibly_ fast. | svachalek wrote: | Soft bamboo (which is useless for products like these) | grows incredibly fast. | tomrod wrote: | Why can they not be hardened? Or otherwise used? | tristor wrote: | density (a critical factor of hardness) is normally | inversely correlated to growth speed. Faster growing | woods/plants are softer. | rahimnathwani wrote: | What % of engineered bamboo flooring is stuff other than bamboo | (like glue)? From looking at the side when installing it, it | seemed like very little. | brodouevencode wrote: | Quite a bit actually. Bamboo cant be cut into planks, so it's | typically ripped into really thin strips and then laminated. | agumonkey wrote: | I, too, would like to see "green" engineering. How to nicely | tap in biosphere / organic material to make whatever we need. | | One old trick was hemp plastic.. I'm not sure what was bad | about it since nobody tried it again since Ford made a | prototype car body with it. | adolph wrote: | Well, the glue is a renewable resource, old livestock and milk. | That's why Borden used mascot Elsie's spouse Elmer as a glue | mascot. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_glue | | https://americacomesalive.com/elmers-glue-the-surprising-sto... | [deleted] | wffurr wrote: | Well it didn't involve any epoxy, just a chemical bath in | readily available chemicals and a pressure step. The energy | requirements seem significantly lower than steel processing. | osense wrote: | As an aside, the article mentions: | | > After the material is processed and carved into the desired | shape, it is coated in *mineral oil* to extend its lifetime. | | I was thinking how, surely, mineral oil isn't food-safe and | well-fit for use on a utensil. However, it turns out that while | low-grade mineral oil is proved carcinogenic, the high-grade | version is not believed to be so, unless dispersed in a mist. | And apparently, we consume quite a bit of mineral oil due to | it's use in the baking industry (though that figure comes from | 1961) | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_oil#Food_preparation | NoSorryCannot wrote: | Mineral oil can be found in most pharmacies marketed as a | laxative. It's a common oil to use for cutting boards and | other applications in proximity to food. | jcrawfordor wrote: | Permali is a commercially available hardened wood with impressive | properties, but it's based on impregnation with a resin which is | not the most environmentally friendly process. A particularly | interesting application of Permali is the nuts and bolts | fastening the ATLAS-I Trestle (said to be the largest wooden | structure in the world) together, since the nature of the | facility required use of a dialectric material for the large | fasteners. | | The resin process has definite downsides though... I'm curious | about the chemical process involved in this proposal. | Historically, chemical treatment of wood has been a significant | source of environmental contamination. Although modern | precautions reduce this problem, it'd be a big step forward if | the chemicals involved here are pretty safe. | peatfreak wrote: | Am I the only person who is irritated by the misuse of the phrase | "23-fold", which really means multiplied by 2^23, not multiplied | by 23? | telotortium wrote: | No, 23-fold means "multiplied by 23" - https://www.merriam- | webster.com/dictionary/fold#:~:text=mult... | erpellan wrote: | There's also Accoya acetylated wood, which is already | commercialized: https://www.accoya.com | canadian_tired wrote: | Wood is renewable when you can grow it, cut it up into useful | shapes, then at the end of its useful life, compost it. As soon | as you add a shit load of processing and plastic and other stuff | it's not "wood" anymore than gasoline is a dead dinosaur. As for | things like plywood that use glue for the laminations...glue is | _the_ most expensive and important part of the product. Not the | wood so much. Replacing steel? I don 't think so. Yes, steel is a | dirty thing ecologically... but steel things last _a long_ | time... and require, in general minimal processing...unlike this | hardened wood proposal. If steel showed up today as a new | material, it would be lauded for all its technical properties. | But it is now old and not so sexy. | entropicgravity wrote: | In addition progress making steel with a lot less CO2, by using | hydrogen (and other techniques) instead of coal has come a long | way. This isn't just pie in the sky, the world's second largest | steel maker plans to reduce CO2 by 30% before 2030. [1] And of | course steel is eminently recyclable. I'm not against wood but | steel has some good long term attributes as well. | | [1]https://corporate.arcelormittal.com/sustainability/climate-a | ... | gonzo41 wrote: | You can also coke iron with carbon from plastic. It's still | not super great. But it does reuse plastics which don't get | recycled enough. | XorNot wrote: | Reusing plastics is honestly one of those "do we need to" | things these days. The theory is that if we reuse them, | then the waste doesn't pollute the environment - but | landfilled plastic waste is basically sequestered carbon, | and plastic pollution is ocean-borne and mostly being | directly produced by poor environmental practice - not | unrecycled plastic waste or landfill escape. | gonzo41 wrote: | Yeah I agree, I'm pretty pro, bury plastic in the ground, | but I figure if we need to coke steel rather than digging | up coal we can just divert a few trucks. | gremloni wrote: | Yeah seriously, bury the plastic really deep away from | water tables and forget about it. We clearly can't | recycle most of the stuff. Couple that with moving away | from a frivolous use of plastic and I think we are | golden. There are a bunch of abandoned mines miles away | from substantial water tables. Fill those up. | danuker wrote: | Reminds me of "Plasteel" from RimWorld. | gilbetron wrote: | A benefit of using wood is not composting it in the end. We | want to pull carbon out of the air, which trees are good at, | but we don't want to let it back into the air when it is done. | Adding all the stuff to it increases the longevity, which is | helpful. | | Steel doesn't pull carbon out of the air, unfortunately. | munk-a wrote: | If half of the material ending up as "wood" in a building is | epoxy or some other treatment, though, the efficacy of using | buildings for carbon capture seems quite decreased. | carlisle_ wrote: | There's something to be said for the fact that harvesting wood | is much more environmentally friendly than petroleum. At the | very least a "wood spill" doesn't exist as far as I know. | AdamN wrote: | Petroleum is definitely more environmentally friendly than | the timber industry. You probably haven't driven around tree | farms - monoculture that destroys the environment for | hundreds of square miles. Even worse is when they pulp | existing forest for things like toilet paper: | | https://www.rcinet.ca/en/2019/02/26/u-s-use-of-toilet- | paper-... | agumonkey wrote: | Few things, maybe the way to farm trees is naive and can be | done in better ways. Just entice companies to have | different ways of working (even if they raise the price a | little afterwards) | | Also petroleum being a big factor in CO2 levels it's hard | to not put it first isn't it ? | whiddershins wrote: | A side benefit of burning the petroleum is trees do grow | much faster and bigger. | | Somehow there is a synergy here we haven't quite | accessed. | | Burn petroleum => release CO2 => tree grows, sequesters | CO2 => use tree for something that doesn't burn it or | compost it ... | | I feel like we are on the edge of figuring this out. | KennyBlanken wrote: | That's an article about toilet paper usage, not building | material. There's no petroleum toilet paper, by the way. | | Wood is biodegradable, renewable, and recyclable. It can be | grown and harvested sustainably; I know because I used to | work with a guy who made a living off surveying forestry | for sustainable timber harvesting. | | It causes no environmental issues if left to rot, doesn't | have to be disposed of in a particular way. | | The vast majority (well over 90%) of plastic is not | recycled. | | Plastic never goes away. Plastic just breaks down into | microparticles that are now so pervasive there's basically | no part of the planet that doesn't have microplastics, no | animal that doesn't have them in its digestive system. And | all the while, it's leeching out toxic chemicals. | megameter wrote: | Wood itself is sustainable, but in making a choice of | building materials, we're also looking for total embedded | energy cost and impact of the final product. Traditional | buildings from a century ago relied on the harvest of | old-growth wood with denser rings than the new | sustainable forestry, and they were built with fewer | features - when built well they didn't fail, but they | weren't targeting high energy performance, climate | control, dust and mold resistance, etc. We can't go back | - we could lower our standards but the stock of old- | growth remains depleted. New wood constructions often use | processed and glued timbers because the processed timbers | can be lighter(good glue is really strong) and they don't | experience nearly as many quality control issues(solid | wood tends to warp). | | The thing is, once we start looking at wood in detail, | it's never _just_ wood. It 's wood, plus adhesives, | paints, and finish. You can't use just wood because it | rots - you at least need to add some pigment to block UV | rays and drainage to limit water pooling. Each of those | additives are a potential source of VOCs(volatile organic | compounds, the term that more accurately describes | "chemicals"). And each step taken during processing adds | energy cost. Paper and corrugated cardboard are not | innocuous - they use one of the higher-energy processes | relative to the amount of input material. | | When you look at what you can do besides wood, you get | similar tradeoffs. Stone is great, but it's still hard to | work with directly, hard enough to not scale to our | industrial population - as it stands, you need an | artisianal economy of stonemasons to make those huge | ancient constructions. Concrete has a huge climate | footprint and the dust is a major VOC source. Steel is | high-energy and not abundant enough to be used | everywhere. | | Thus, plastics enter as a way of getting some of the | qualities we want. Plastics are not all one of a kind and | have varying VOC content. We can't afford not to use them | to have this population and quality of life, which means | we have to study how to use them safely. The microplastic | issue is a part of that, but it's oversold as "plastic is | scary". Wood smoke is also scary, as anyone who has been | around a wildfire will attest. | lindseymysse wrote: | You can make steel with charcoal, which is carbon neutral in | the end: https://aeon.co/essays/could-we-reboot-a-modern- | civilisation... | | What I like about this idea is it's a way to take carbon out of | the air while manufacturing something. We are going to have to | deal with carbon no matter what, why not manufacture things | with it? | i_am_proteus wrote: | Making steel is how we got here. Europe was decimating her | forests for charcoal. England ran out first, then turned to | coal, then needed to pump water out of coal mines... | tuatoru wrote: | > You can make steel with charcoal | | Not at the scale at which the world needs steel. | 8note wrote: | It has a carbon neutral implementation (grow trees, the burn | them) but it also has a carbon positive alternative which I | much cheaper (cut down existing forests an go out of business | once there's no forests) | | Wood chip heating already has that problem | FpUser wrote: | >"As soon as you add a shit load of processing and plastic and | other stuff it's not "wood" anymore than gasoline is a dead | dinosaur. | | This is priceless. love it. | wffurr wrote: | Exactly which step of this hardened wood process uses glue? I | didn't see that anywhere in the paper. | adrian_b wrote: | I have not seen the paper, but the process almost certainly | does not use any glue. | | It must use wood compression at very high pressures, which | collapses the cell walls in the wood and results in a | densified high-strength wood. | | There have been various methods to make densified wood for | structural applications, but I assume that this is an | improved process, which makes an even denser and more | homogeneous material, which ensures that even blades can be | made from it. | | Edit: According to Phys.org, the improvement over the | previous processes is a treatment in a chemical bath that | removes the lignin and other components of the wood, leaving | only the cellulose, before the compression. | | This removal of the non-cellulose components ensures that the | densified wood is harder and with less defects than those | made with the older processes. | EGreg wrote: | Not to mention all that carbon released when the wood | decomposes - no ? | noselasd wrote: | It was captured from the air when the wood was grown though - | so as long as you maintain the forrest you took the wood from | it works out. | mensetmanusman wrote: | No, not all carbon is released as gas during decomposition. | If it were, we wouldn't have diamonds :) | ajnin wrote: | Yes, that's why planting trees to offset carbon emissions is | not really as good an idea as it seems, trees can live a long | time but they're not immortal, and when they die they release | their carbon back into the environment. | robotresearcher wrote: | If you leave them alone to make baby trees, they can be an | amortized constant capture or better. | | Meanwhile they liberate oxygen, which I enjoy daily. | pxndx wrote: | If you turn what now is barren land or grasslands into a | forest, it absorbs CO2 as it grows, and that CO2 stays | captured for as long as that land is a forest, it doesn't | matter if individual trees die and decompose. | mikeg8 wrote: | No expert here but I believe it depends on _how_ it | decomposes. If wood rots at the surface, my understanding is | more carbon is released into the atmosphere but if it is | buried or decomposed using fungi or soil microbes, more | carbon is captured into the soil. | | Forests have a lot of decaying and decomposing deadfall wood | but still seem to be a carbon sink so it may be a layering | thing... | spfzero wrote: | That's the reason you use wood chips and bark for mulch in | a garden; to add carbon to the soil. | canadianfella wrote: | Do you have a source for that? That sounds wrong. | psd1 wrote: | It isn't the usual primary reason. You use these things | to provide a mulch layer over the top of tilth; it | suppresses weed germination. | | If all you want is to add organics, you'd probably fork | in manure. | booi wrote: | By released I assume you mean into the air? I think only if | it's burned? | spfzero wrote: | At least this material has a main ingredient that is renewable. | No part of steel is renewable right? You can't grow more iron | ore (though there is a lot of it lying around). | | Also I'm doubting "minimal processing" for steel. You have to | dig up the ore with giant machines, transport huge amounts of | it by train, smash it with a lot of energy and heavy equipment, | melt it with a lot of energy and heavy equipment, etc., etc. | This seems like the opposite of minimal? | WalterBright wrote: | > You can't grow more iron ore (though there is a lot of it | lying around). | | We live on a thin crusty shell around a ball of iron. | adrian_b wrote: | The ball of iron would be Earth's core, and between the | thin crust on which we live and the iron core there is the | very thick mantle. | | Nevertheless, the mantle is made of a mixture of iron | oxides, silicon dioxide and magnesium oxide, with small | quantities of the other elements, so under the thin crust, | even if there remain thousands of kilometers until the iron | ball, there is nonetheless what is essentially a huge | amount of iron ore. | _nalply wrote: | > ball of iron | | ... which is way beyond our reach. | mywittyname wrote: | Wood also requires heavy equipment to cut, mill, process. Not | to mention, it needs a heck of a lot of land area. In | addition to whatever process is involved in "hardening" this | wood. | | Plus, steel is entirely recyclable. And it has some natural | properties that make is relatively easy to recycle. It can be | sorted with magnets, and it has a higher melting point than | most impurities. | djrogers wrote: | The big advantage to wood though, is that while it's | growing it's a carbon sink, and once hardened that carbon | is likely stored forever. | korantu wrote: | you can achieve the same effect by making plastic with | captured co2 [1]. Carbon would stay in plastic for very | long time. | | This way you get to reuse all the (enormous) existing | infrastructure, as well. | | [1] https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9717/9/5/759/pdf | 8note wrote: | The iron in the universe is increasing over time. | | On earth it replenishes too via meteorite strikes and by | nuclear decay. I'm not sure was decays into iron, but I'm | sure it's most things, given its name as the most stable | element | | Mind you, rust is quite similar to iron ore | xxs wrote: | >You can't grow more iron ore | | Steel is perfectly recyclable, but even then there is plenty | of iron on earth. We won't be running out of iron. | | Edit: Of course, steel is just a name of class of alloys - | some of the steel types have a rarer elements like Mo, Ti, | V... | debacle wrote: | Considering that the graphic references basswood, my guess is | that the primary component of the final product, by mass, is | not wood. | patmorgan23 wrote: | Steel can be recycled/reused pretty easily. Just melt it down | on an arc furnace and recast it. Can the same be said for | hardened wood? | AlexandrB wrote: | Indeed, steel is _so_ recyclable that people will pay you | for it regardless of condition. Contrast that to any kind | of wood /pulp product. | ip26 wrote: | Steel is amazing - and as a result we use it in all kinds of | places where its properties aren't fully utilized. | | Aluminum has been growing into that role of "steel | alternative", but there's still room for other alternatives. | aurizon wrote: | Looking back at Aluminium, it was once very costly - there | was no economical way to extract it from clay by traditional | metallurgy. When the Hall process of electrolytic extraction | from molten salts was invented = huge price decline, and | useage. Titanium is in a similar position, fairly common, but | hard to extract economically. I hope there is a low cost | electrolytic to recover Titanium found some day, as it is a | very good material for all manner of uses at a lower price. h | ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall%E2%80%93H%C3%A9roult_proc.. | . | | There is a new Titanium process, not as cheap as I would | like, but a lot better than we have now. | https://www.nature.com/articles/d42473-021-00166-8 | TaylorAlexander wrote: | Yep I was really pleased to see that ikea has started | offering cheap galvanized steel shelves (named "Hyllis"). | Glad to have something fully recyclable. | jjtheblunt wrote: | you just reminded me of the marvelous magnesium NeXT cases, | before Apple's alumin[i]um became popular. | xxs wrote: | magnesium is sort of a more expensive version of al. | gnabgib wrote: | In that it's one electron from it (like Silicon)? | Magnesium is 2.2x stronger, 1.08x harder, and 2.05x more | costly, 0.65x as thermally conductive and, 0.64x as | dense. Think I'm missing your similarity metric | katbyte wrote: | You just reminded me that I used to have a camera with an | magnesium body. That thing was a delightfully tough | beast. | contingencies wrote: | It is also very dangerous to machine. https://www.china- | machining.com/blog/cnc-machining-magnesium... | canadianfella wrote: | Because it has similar properties as aluminum. This is | obvious. Why play dumb? | nl wrote: | Firstly those characteristics are quite similar for | different metals. | | Secondly Aluminium is normally alloyed with other metals | bringing the two even closer. | | Finally it's a light, strong metal and used in many | similar industrial products as Aluminium. | xxs wrote: | "nl" already brought few points. As a practical test: | take a piece made of cast magnesium (alloy) or cast | aluminum (alloy). It'd be hard to easily tell each other | apart, save for using a weak acid. Their strength is | similar (esp. when alloyed, still worse off for the | aluminum) but magnesium is non-trivially lighter. Here, a | random quote [0] | | _Magnesium is also better at casting components with | thinner walls and tighter tolerances than aluminum. | However, even with the many advantages of magnesium, | aluminum remains a less expensive alternative for die | casting._ | | [0]: https://diecasting.com/blog/the-difference-between- | aluminum-... | KorematsuFredt wrote: | Why are people not considering just growing large trees to | capture carbon cut down those trees and just coat them in | plastic and throw them at the bottom of ocean/desert or some | kind of storage where this carbon can stay trapped for | thousands of years ? What am I missing ? | | I think growing trees is better than just capturing CO2 | directly as growing a large forest might have other advantages | and a lot of wood can be used for normal human industry as | well. | Ma8ee wrote: | Or build houses and bridges and stuff with them instead of | concrete. | Igelau wrote: | I'll never understand why it's always "stop climate change" | or "deny climate change" but there's essentially no room for | "fix climate change" or "reverse climate change". The | resources are allocated for polarization and not pragmatism. | danuker wrote: | Because 20 million trees planted would offset US emissions by | 2 days. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqht2bIQXIY | CodeGlitch wrote: | I wonder if there's any legs in algae or seaweed. Wouldn't | take up valuable land to grow and is fast growing. | whiddershins wrote: | But I can't tell if 20 million trees is a lot or a little. | nl wrote: | Carbon capture using trees is very common. Most carbin offset | programs fund this. | | No need to drop it to the bottom of the ocean though. Just | build something out of it. | amenghra wrote: | https://www.terraformation.com/blog/trees-are-a-faster- | solut... | Calloutman wrote: | Maybe because trees contain a lot of water/nutrients? Tbh | I've always wondered what you've said too, though I'd just | dump the wood in old mines etc. | Calloutman wrote: | I found this https://cbmjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/ | 10.1186/1750-0... | nl wrote: | This process doesn't use glue. It relies on compressing wood | and removal of ligand. | noja wrote: | All good points, but... | https://www.plasticstoday.com/materials/sorry-folks-oil-does... | soperj wrote: | It doesn't last so long in construction, rebar in concrete has | like a 75 year lifespan no? | katbyte wrote: | Does that not depend if it's stainless or not? | [deleted] | zardo wrote: | Plus or minus 25 years depending on the environment and | maintenance. But I would disagree that 75 years is not so | long. | tedivm wrote: | > In reality, their life span is more like 50-100 years, and | sometimes less. Building codes and policies generally require | buildings to survive for several decades, but deterioration | can begin in as little as 10 years. | anon_cow1111 wrote: | https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01600-6 | | I think this is an article describing the same process, with more | detail than the abstract above. A quick ctrl+f lists Teng Li's | name in both so probably the same research group. (Originally | found on /. several years back) ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-10-21 23:00 UTC)