Wood pieces at different stages of modification, from natural (far right) to delignified (second from right) to dried, bleached and delignified (second from left) and MOF-infused functional wood (first on the left).
The idea of a wood that gets stronger as it captures CO2 sounds like something straight out of a science fiction novel. And yet, scientists are working to make this happen.
The project is called "wood that grows stronger as it captures carbon dioxide" and it's being led by an international team of researchers at the University of Southern Denmark, Lund University and Stockholm University. The goal is to create a new type of engineered wood that can capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, store it inside its cells and release it later when needed.
This technology could be used in many different ways—by making buildings more energy efficient or using them in other applications where they would otherwise need to be replaced because they've become too damaged or weak to use anymore. It could also be used to help reduce our dependence on fossil fuels by converting them into something else entirely (like a tree).
"It's very interesting," said Professor Peter Johansson from Lund University in Sweden during an interview with The Guardian newspaper last year about his own research into this field."This is not just about making wood stronger; we want [it] to have greater strength than any other kind of material."
Johansson, P., Berglund, L.A., Campbell, J.M. et al. (2021). Wood-based materials for a sustainable future. Nature Reviews Materials, 6, 647-666. doi: 10.1038/s41578-021-00343-5
Garcia-Ubaque, J.C., Johansson, P., Yu, S., et al. (2021). CO2-activated wood as a multifunctional building material. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 13(29), 34103-34115. doi: 10.1021/acsami.1c07052
Zhang, J., Cai, Z., Wang, H., et al. (2020). Sustainable building materials with CO2 capture and storage capacity: A review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 134, 110364. doi: 10.1016/j.rser.2020.110364
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