Webinar: Green Chemistry: Inventing a Circular Economy through a Thermodynamic Lens

Scientists have developed a hardened wood material that, when sharpened, is three times sharper than a stainless steel dinner knife, according to the new study on the work. The research comes from the University of Maryland’s Teng Li and a team that developed a new method to generate extremely hard wood. Among other things, the development may lead to more sustainable building materials.  Wood contains between 40- and 50-percent cellulose, with the rest of the material compromised of binders called lignin and hemicellulose. While cellulose has a greater strength-to-density ratio than materials like metal and ceramic, the binder materials make wood overall weaker than man-made counterparts.