Scientists have developed transparent wood that could be used in building materials and would help home and construction owners save money on artificial lighting costs.
The material could also find application in solar cell windows .researchers said .
The theory is ,if the walls themselves were transparent ,this would reduce the need for artificial lighting .
Researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm,removed lignin from Balsa tree.
Lignin is a structural polymer in plants that blocks 80 to 90% of light from passing through .To allow light to pass through the wood more directly ,researchers incorporated acrylic ,often known as Plexiglass..
The transparent wood was created by first stripping all the lignin - a natural wood fibre found in cell walls - from the material. That makes the wood "beautifully white", the researchers explain, but doesn't help to make it see-through, seeing as wood itself blocks light.
But by embedding the white wood with a transparent polymer known as prepolymerized methyl methacrylate (PMMA), the team was able to alter its refractive index in order to achieve light transmittance of up to 85 percent - while still retaining the familiar wood structure.
The research was conducted by lead researcher Lars Berglund.
The material could also find application in solar cell windows .researchers said .
The theory is ,if the walls themselves were transparent ,this would reduce the need for artificial lighting .
Researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm,removed lignin from Balsa tree.
Lignin is a structural polymer in plants that blocks 80 to 90% of light from passing through .To allow light to pass through the wood more directly ,researchers incorporated acrylic ,often known as Plexiglass..
The transparent wood was created by first stripping all the lignin - a natural wood fibre found in cell walls - from the material. That makes the wood "beautifully white", the researchers explain, but doesn't help to make it see-through, seeing as wood itself blocks light.
But by embedding the white wood with a transparent polymer known as prepolymerized methyl methacrylate (PMMA), the team was able to alter its refractive index in order to achieve light transmittance of up to 85 percent - while still retaining the familiar wood structure.
The research was conducted by lead researcher Lars Berglund.
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