{"id":34121,"date":"2016-04-07T07:20:17","date_gmt":"2016-04-07T05:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=34121"},"modified":"2016-04-05T13:59:50","modified_gmt":"2016-04-05T11:59:50","slug":"wooden-windows-new-material-could-replace-glass-in-solar-cells-and-buildings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wooden-windows-new-material-could-replace-glass-in-solar-cells-and-buildings\/","title":{"rendered":"Wooden windows? New material could replace glass in solar cells and buildings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Windows and solar panels in the future could be made from one of the best \u2014 and cheapest \u2014 construction materials known: wood. Researchers at Stockholm’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology have developed a new transparent wood material that’s suitable for mass production.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"LarsB\"
Lars Berglund<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lars Berglund, a professor at Wallenberg Wood Science Center at KTH, says that while optically transparent wood has been developed for microscopic samples in the study of wood anatomy, the KTH project introduces a way to use the material on a large scale.\u00a0The finding was\u00a0 published in the American Chemical Society journal, Biomacromolecules<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Transparent wood is a good material for solar cells, since it’s a low-cost, readily available and renewable resource,” Berglund says. “This becomes particularly important in covering large surfaces with solar cells.”<\/p>\n

Berglund says transparent wood panels can also be used for windows, and semitransparent facades, when the idea is to let light in but maintain privacy.<\/p>\n

The optically transparent wood is a type of wood veneer in which the lignin, a component of the cell walls, is removed chemically.<\/p>\n

\"transpwood800\"
The transparent wood is made by removing the lignin in the wood veneer. (Photo: Peter Larsson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“When the lignin is removed, the wood becomes beautifully white. But because wood isn’t not naturally transparent, we achieve that effect with some nanoscale tailoring,” he says.<\/p>\n

The white porous veneer substrate is impregnated with a transparent polymer and the optical properties of the two are then matched, he says.<\/p>\n

“No one has previously considered the possibility of creating larger transparent structures for use as solar cells and in buildings,” he says<\/p>\n

Among the work to be done next is enhancing the transparency of the material and scaling up the manufacturing process, Berglund says.<\/p>\n

“We also intend to work further with different types of wood,” he adds.<\/p>\n

“Wood is by far the most used bio-based material in buildings. It’s attractive that the material comes from renewable sources. It also offers excellent mechanical properties, including\u00a0strength, toughness, low density and low thermal conductivity.”<\/p>\n

The project is financed by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Windows and solar panels in the future could be made from one of the best \u2014 and cheapest \u2014 construction materials known: wood. Researchers at Stockholm’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology have developed a new transparent wood material that’s suitable for mass production. Lars Berglund, a professor at Wallenberg Wood Science Center at KTH, says […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[],"supplier":[6418,10307],"class_list":["post-34121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","supplier-kth-royal","supplier-the-wallenberg-foundations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34121"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=34121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}