Can you imagine a smartphone with a wooden touchscreen? Or a house with wooden windows? Probably not—unless you've heard of transparent wood. Made by modifying wood's natural structure, this material ...

Wood, a traditional and sustainable structural material, has long been used in construction and furniture due to its availability and mechanical properties. However, natural wood's strength is ...

and impact toughness – much more so than natural wood. It even surpasses wood which has been compressed by traditional methods, in which the fibers are just mechanically flattened in one direction.

The University of Tennessee, led by the head of Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Art Ragauskas, is researching how to turn wood waste into a substance as strong as steel. The ...