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Wood Pulp Extract Stronger Than Carbon Fiber Or Kevlar
Zothecula writes "The Forest Products Laboratory of the US Forest Service has opened a US$1.7 million pilot plant for the production of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) from wood by-products materials such as wood chips and sawdust. Prepared properly, CNCs are stronger and stiffer than Kevlar or carbon fibers, so that putting CNC into composite materials results in high strength, low weight products. In addition, the cost of CNCs is less than ten percent of the cost of Kevlar fiber or carbon fiber. These qualities have attracted the interest of the military for use in lightweight armor and ballistic glass (CNCs are transparent), as well as companies in the automotive, aerospace, electronics, consumer products, and medical industries."
Who needs transparent aluminum when you've got transparent, bulletproof wood?
Transparent aluminum is ballistics-resistant so much so that it doesn't even scratch. It's also much more expensive.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
So I take it we'll be seeing the next president riding around in a wood-sided grocery getter?
Wouldn't it be great if we end up making the space elevator out of wood?
It seems as if being stiffer than Kevlar may limit its usefulness in certain applications, such as body armor and the like. That said, the summary mentioned composite materials that simply use it as a component. Any material scientists around who can comment on whether its an issue or how this stuff might change things?
I *knew* I should have patented the paper armor I made for myself when I was a kid.
Ezekiel 23:20
The product possibilities are endless, but I think bullet proof west with integrated brew station will be the greatest hit. Survive the tough battle, add water and yeast - instant celebratory beverage.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
One of the biggest problems with building a race car/truck is often the cost of the materials. The stiffer frames built from carbon fiber are insanely expensive. Imagine if we could build a frame out of this for around the cost of steel --the technology could then be used in ordinary cars, with a huge weight savings, and a safer, stronger frame. It could revolutionize the automotive design industry.
Or a good excuse to grow hemp.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
...or to start growing industrial hemp?
Ezekiel 23:20
So does this mean that Ikea furniture will now be bullet proof too?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Wood armor - we're back to the medieval days!
As with most (all?) engineered wood products - what about when it gets wet?
From TFA:
Swelling introduces a large number of nano-defects in the cellulose structure. Although there is little swelling of a single CNC, water can penetrate into amorphous cellulose with ease, pushing apart the individual cellulose molecules in those regions. In addition, the bonds and interfaces between neighboring CNC will be disrupted, thereby significantly reducing the strength of any material reinforced with CNCs. To make matters worse, water can move easily over the surface/interfaces of the CNCs, thereby allowing water to penetrate far into a composite containing CNCs.
They suggest painting it. To be honest, I'm a skeptic. We wore body armor during my time in Iraq, and the abuse that our gear received cannot be overstated. Rain, heat, jumping over walls, dealing with mud. No thanks, I'll stick with Kevlar.
Material, Elastic Modulus, Tensile Strength
CNC, 150 GPa, 7.5 GPa
Kevlar 49, 125 GPa, 3.5 GPa
Carbon fiber, 150 GPa, 3.5 GPa
Carbon nanotubes, 300 GPa, 20 GPa
So a great compromise material when you take cost into account, if it comes to fruition.
Maybe I'm not reading this right, but wouldn't this present huge fire hazards because it's essentially wood?
For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
You don't need to cut down trees from this. You can make it out of twigs or old furniture or any other kind of wood left-overs.
Old idea comes around again. The chinese used paper to make armor, it was lighter than steel and stronger as well, plus with the right coating, waterproof.
So when can I buy a "wooden" bike frame? Extra bonus points if it can be composted (along with me) when it gets totaled by a hit-n-run driver.
YES!
Uh, at least in the US and Canada the trees used for making pulp come from forests owned by the paper companies and they sure as hell replant them when they harvest. Mead Westvaco (as an example) has a fairly long term view of things, they own 3M acres and process them in a fashion that minimizes the amount of land they have to purchase to meet demand. The only bad thing about timber harvesting is that there's no old growth forests, but those were cut down generations ago and have little to nothing to do with modern forestry practices.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Best idea for use of wood pulp ever: A self repairing, nearly torpedo proof floating air base. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk
Stronger burn rate too, I assume.
So when can I order my super-light, super-stiff CNC composite racing bicycle? Please? Is there a pre-order process? Can I put it on lay-away?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Wait a minute, what was the first reason?
....another crappy excuse to cut down trees.
Yeah... speaking of that, growing lumber trees and sawmills are not exactly new or high tech. Nor all manner of using wood as an industrial chemical feedstock. How come this is "new"? Perhaps, this is an interesting example of how something old and boring still has some exciting research potential in it.
The most interesting story related to this is probably why "we" haven't heard of this until 2012.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Uh, at least in the US and Canada the trees used for making pulp come from forests owned by the paper companies and they sure as hell replant them when they harvest. Mead Westvaco (as an example) has a fairly long term view of things, they own 3M acres and process them in a fashion that minimizes the amount of land they have to purchase to meet demand. The only bad thing about timber harvesting is that there's no old growth forests, but those were cut down generations ago and have little to nothing to do with modern forestry practices.
Right... acres and acres of allelopathic monocrops... what harm could that do?
Around my neck of the woods, it's all about evergreens. They ship em around the world for Xmas trees, and the fact that they replant makes it seem like it's all ok.
Shame the soil is rendered so acidic you could put it under your tongue and take a trip to see lucy in the sky.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Goes to show that Pykrete was ahead of it's time.
In the future, there will be a Legend of Zelda game where the Wooden Shield will be the best shield, rather than the starting shield.
My (non wood) vest came with a notice to avoid water/moisture.
Don't know if it as big an issue for military grade vests because special coatings may be applied....
Too many Google hits to bother listing.
No brain, no pain.
Ummm... from TFA: it's nemesis is water. This kind of kiboshes the whole idea IMO. I guess it could be good armour for fighting a war on Mars though.
Actually they generally don't do that, because one blight or beetle means they lose an entire plot for many years, plus their plants will have varying needs and having the cutting crews constantly moving equipment to meet demand is inefficient. Christmas tree farms are a different animal, there the trees are planted and harvested in a handful of years and the harvest season is very short so making things as monoculture as possible is seen as an advantage (plus if you lose a crop your downtime is significantly less).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Termites!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
How is this different than fields of wheat or corn?
Do they not have any process to prevent competition?
Here goes the remains of the rain forests.
So now they have to come up with stronger nails so we can make something useful out of it?
Have you ever tried to put lights and ornaments on wheat? Duh.
How is this different than fields of wheat or corn?
Do they not have any process to prevent competition?
They don't damage the soil the same way... but yeah, they're pretty bad too.
For a smarter way, I'd suggest checking out Geoff Lawton's DVD "Establishing a Food Forest the Permaculture Way". You can view some decent excerpts searching Youtube for the term "Lawton's Guide To Permaculture Design and Strategy"
Food forests are complex and thus not friendly to automation, so it's not a profitable way for one man to establish himself as the gatekeeper to the cupboards of a million of his fellows.
However, they're less expensive in terms of materials, produce significantly more food in the same space, require no maintenance, and once they're built, they can and have lasted thousands of years.
Example: 300 year old food forest in Vietnam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5ZgzwoQ-ao
Example: 2000 year old food forest in Morocco
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hftgWcD-1Nw
I used his principles when designing a border of perennial food-bearing plants to protect our local urban garden society site from hungry homeless people. Now instead of raiding peoples personal plots, they feed themselves from the edge and go on their merry way. I'm determined to leave an oasis to my children when I die, and hope to be able to get the land and get started with the labour in the next couple of years.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
True, in those regions. The paper industry has something of a reputation for environmental damage because this wasn't always the case. If you want to see some really destructive logging, try looking at hardwood for furniture.
Actually, in Canada, the paper companies don't own the forests. They are harvesting crown land. The wood and paper companies pay only and "administrative fee" to allow them to cut down the trees. They do however have to replant after they are done. The good thing is that the government stays in control of the forests and can stop logging on certain areas if they deem fit. This is the reasoning for the softwood lumber dispute. Americans claim the Canadian forestry companies are receiving a subsidy, and therefore should be subject to import duties.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
In a way, it's very much the same. Before the US grain belt was developed and planted, the average biodiversity was very high, on the order of being able to find upwards of 1,000 different plant types in a given acre. The modern number for the region is only 6 different plant specie per acre. This doesn't mean that all those plants went extinct, just that they now often occur much less than once per acre on average, but many cases are definitely known to be extinctions. So yes, fields of wheat or corn are tending towards the same risky situation as monoculture tree farming. Wheat monoculture practices contributed greatly to the 1930's dustbowl, and so it's reasonable to argue they helped worsen and prolong the great depression. Personally, I'd think that was a stromg incentive to avoid large acreage monocultures whenever possible.
Who is John Cabal?
Wood pulp *is* carbon fiber, think about it.
The invasion clearly has begun, where else could they have "discovered" this radical new use of wood pulp?!
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
Can paper be used?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Alternatively, it helped to shorten it. It created a massive influx of low-wage labor. And it's not like the Okies were the cornerstone of the consumer market. They barely scratched a living off the land, so didn't contribute much in terms of products consumption. So, for all I know it helped to shorten i.t
The really bad thing about the dust bowl was simply the human toll. My dad worked around the area in the 60s. He heard countless stories of people committing suicide during the storms. Imagine a long dreary winter on steroids, except with less sun light and dirt and grit in every little nook and cranny. It literally drove people insane.
Ok, a little more searious question, how well does it hold up to long term water exposure? Will it rot from sustained moisture or degrade out in the environment, and more or less than kevlar? A super fiber material is only super if it lasts a long time out in the environment.
You don't need to cut down trees from this. You can make it out of twigs or old furniture or any other kind of wood left-overs.
Or just grow the trees like the paper industry does.
This will require some years of development, but it certainly shows promise.
The strength and stiffness of a fiber are not the performance we'll directly obtain from the materials. It's more like a potential number. Typical 'carbon fiber' products have on the order of 60%-75% fiber and 40%-30% plastic by volume, where epoxy is one of the most common plastics. The carbon fibers contribute strength and stiffness, but it would fracture easily with a rigid binder. The softer plastic binder acts to share and redistribute loading efficiently (after some fibers break) to keep the carbon fibers more or less all carrying load effectively.
They'll have to go experiment until they find which plastics work well with this. That took a long time for composites since if the plastic binds too strongly to the fibers, the resulting composite is very brittle and loses a lot of potential strength. Also, to optimize the bond strength, carbon/kevlar/glass/etc fibers are typically treated with a 'sizing' that help the fibers bind optimally to a targeted plastic or set of plastics. Hopefully this new material can leapfrog off of the progress and work of the composites industry. Humidity will also be a concern that requires some testing and may cause some compromise on binder selection.
Also, 'typical' fiber properties really depend on the application. A typical aerospace carbon fiber is Hexcel IM7, which shows considerable improvement over the properties they reported in the article, and others can be a fair bit better or worse. The IM7 6k tow fiber is reported to have:
Ultimate Tensile Strength: 5.15 GPa
Elastic Modulus: 276 GPa
http://www.hexcel.com/resources/datasheets/carbon-fiber-data-sheets/im7.pdf
Sample properties of one finished product provide:
Ultimate Tensile Strength: 2.5 GPa
Elastic Modulus: 163 GPa
http://www.hexcel.com/Resources/DataSheets/Prepreg-Data-Sheets/8552_eu.pdf
A few years ago the least expensive carbon fiber would sell for ~$15/lb raw material with the epoxy typically around $9/lb, and the IM7 fiber above is probably an order of magnitude more costly. I don't know what figures they used for their cost comparison, but they can't really have the whole cradle to grave process figured out at this stage anyway, so we'll see what happens when they get some material fabricated.
There's a lot of work ahead, but this seems promising!
Seems to me a bacteria could be genetically engineered to eat this stuff, just like Duroplast. Could make its use in warfare untenable.
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
You don't need to cut down trees from this. You can make it out of twigs or old furniture or any other kind of wood left-overs.
Or just grow the trees like the paper industry does.
But if they do, then they would rob /.ers the opportunity to yell "tree killerssss!!!11".
Far from it. Many boats are made by "cold molding", in which you start with a mold and build up your own plywood layers on top using thin veneers and epoxy resin. The result is light, strong, and very water resistant indeed if done properly. Some woods such as mahogany and utile are already extremely strong and stiff (comparing equivalent mass/area) compared to e.g. aluminum and fiberglass, and this looks like it would be more of the same, only much easier to form.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Look up Wood Epoxy Saturation Technique.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
No, this is not an excuse to cut down trees. Its an excuse to grow more, and cut down on the amount of waste that is discarded from what wood products we use. TFS even stated that CNC is made from 'wood chips and sawdust' which was, until this product was discovered, a trash byproduct of the lumber industry.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
I used his principles when designing a border of perennial food-bearing plants to protect our local urban garden society site from hungry homeless people. Now instead of raiding peoples personal plots, they feed themselves from the edge and go on their merry way.
I believe this is considered part of tithing.
Paper demand is very sluggish in the developed world. The slow death (or metamorphosis) of the newspaper industry that is directly related to the digital publishing revolution is clearly responsible. The less-paper world is coming. It's coming later than many thought it would, but the paper companies are really feeling it. A friend who follows the paper industry told me that projected paper demand is a full thirty percent lower now than expected in the developed world. Not that demand is actually shrinking, it is just growing slower -- a lot slower -- than earlier trends projected. The developing world is more robust. Corporate investments in forests are by nature long-term. And there is a glut due to demand not growing as projected. Hence intensive research -- as seen in this FA -- into other ways to use pulp in quantity.
I briefly looked for something comprehensive to make my point and found this article from Paper Age. It is pretty general, but the writing is on the wall-mounted tablet display.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
A good chunk of the Okies ended up in California doing migrant labor (both sides of my family were involved in that, so no, I'm not just basing it off of The Grapes of Wrath). If they hadn't been there, then they probably would have just had Mexican migrant labor doing it, so there wasn't really any advantage from the Okie influx.
There was a major disadvantage - Oklahoma had just acheived statehood some 30-40 years before the dust bowl. Towns were growing, and new businesses were being built up. A lot of that went away when farms failed, and there's a lot of ghost towns out that way. I've noticed a marked difference in western Oklahoma in my lifetime - it's still recovering. Had the dust bowl not happened, Oklahoma would have probably fared the depression fairly well.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
The US Forestry Service ?!?!
We've got to shut these big government agencies down. They provide absolutely no value are are bleeding the nation dry.
http://www.renovobikes.com/
The first facility to produce nanocrystalline cellulose on a large scale will be in Windsor, Quebec, Canada. FPInnovations and Domtar are partnering to produce and commercialize nonocrystalline cellulose under the name "CelluForce" at Domtar's pulp mill in Windsor. $36 million (including federal and provincial dollars) are being invested into the construction of the plant.
Both the aerospace and automotive industries are interested in nanocrystalline cellulose as an ingredient for lightweight, high-strength composite materials.
It also has other potential - earlier this year, a 16 year old student discovered the cellulose of tree pulp also has anti-aging benefits!
I think that in many northern areas, old natural forests tend to have only/mostly spruce trees, until the trees are cut down, some serious disease kills the trees or there is forest fire.
When the old forest is destroyed by some reason, the first trees that will naturally grow, will be trees that grow quickly and need much light, like some hardwood trees. However, with enough time, there will be also small spruce trees, that tolerate shadows better than other trees and slowly they will grow bigger, until they will grow so big that their shadows will prevent other trees getting enough light to grow. I think is called ecological succession.
And although the needles of spruce trees are slightly acidic, I don't think they influence that much to the pH of soil.
I can't wait until this material is used in road bike designs!
Tubing would suck.
http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2009/03/under-the-skin-of-astons-one-77-supercar.html
http://www.speedhunters.com/2009/06/car_builder_gt_gt_pagani_factory_tour_pt_1/
These are showing up on several high end vehicles and even bycycles. If the CNC's become commercially viable it would be much cheaper to make monocoque chassis for a variety of vehicles.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
This material has a fatal flaw in its current form. From the article:
"CNCs separated from wood pulp are typically a fraction of a micron long"
That means you should not hold your breath while waiting for CNCs to replace kevlar and carbon fibers in the majority of applications. Kevlar and carbon fibers are available in very long continous lengths (thousands of feet), which allows weaving them into fabrics for use in composite material fabrication. In their current form CNCs are basically a very fine powder material instead of actual recogizable fibers. You could take some carbon fibers and ground them into a fine powder, but any composite material made from that will be far weaker than when long fibers are used.
I'm not interested until it's strong enough to use as a space elevator ribbon.
Everybody dance now!
Dun! Dun! Dun-dun-Everybody dance now!
Your brain is not a computer.
In fact the Marcos sports car was made with steam-bent marine plywood panels and has proved both robust and maintainable, just far too expensive for production use.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
It comes from a command in Leviticus 19:9
"When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest."
The idea is that landowners should NOT reap every single thing in the field that is owned by them (as they could claimed the right) but that they should leave some bits for the poor people to gather.
The landowner is wealthy enough to not worry about a few percentage loss and the poor people don't need any state welfare.
Of course, this is totally against the practice of modern businesses where very single scrap is gathered up in the name of the almighty dollar and screw anybody else.
In Ruth 2 there is an example of a poor women gleaning behind the rightful workers who eventually marries the boss, so it turned out well for him to let them take the gleanings.
Whether you believe the Bible or not, it's good social economics against being too greedy.
Hardly anything is "trash" in manufacturing unless it's cheaper to throw it away than to reuse/recycle it.
Sawdust is used as a filler in multiple products, is often burned to generate heat/electricity for manufacturing plants, and I just watched a TV show about how sawdust is turned into artificial fireplace logs (under high compression, the sawdust apparently glues itself together into an amazingly dense solid).
Sounds like a good material for space craft bodies.
Corporate investments in forests are by nature long-term. And there is a glut due to demand not growing as projected. Hence intensive research -- as seen in this FA -- into other ways to use pulp in quantity.
They could slash them down, carbonize them, then bury them and sell carbon tax credits, or sell it as "green" coal. But i suppose profit margins are low in that kind of plan.
But no need to charcoal the trees. Just bury them for carbon credit and grow new ones. We could put them in old coal mines. Wait a minute.... thought coming in.....Hmmm. It occurs to me that simply by making paper you are sequestering carbon. When your Sunday Times finds its way into an anaerobic pocket of the landfill (provided you didn't recycle it.) the carbon in it is nicely isolated from the atmosphere, at least for a solid period of time.
Okay. Listen up. Stop recycling. I'm calling my attorney. We're going to bin our paper and get rich from carbon credits. Woohoo!
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
If it's just trash, then where did this sheet of particle board I've got come from?
It's another use for a byproduct, which already has some uses (particle/chipboard).
Not a sentence!
Well, it wasn't my land... just part of my guiding principle that when possible, it's better to create abundance than be forced to take responsibility for protecting scarce resources.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
If you want to use these materials in any kind of bulk, you're going to be getting wood pulp from trees.
What the other poster apparently doesn't realize is that the cheapest way to do that is to use cheap bulk fast-growth pine raised for the purpose on what is effectively farmland and which, if the trees ever became unprofitable, would to used to grow something else. The same way they make paper.
Any other kind of wood is too expensive to use as pulp. Don't believe me? Go to a lumber yard and compare the prices of cheap pine (e.g., 2x4s) versus any other kind of wood.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
> Uh, at least in the US and Canada
It's true worldwide, because it's a result not of legal restrictions that vary by jurisdiction but rather fundamental economic forces that do not discriminate based on geographical location.
> the trees used for making pulp come from forests owned by the
> paper companies and they sure as hell replant them when they harvest
Sometimes the land is owned by the company, and sometimes it is not, but the trees used to make pulp (and thus paper) are always, always, always fast-growth pine grown for that express purpose. Because it's MUCH cheaper that way. Go to the lumber yard nearest you and compare the price of cheap pine (e.g., 2x4s) versus any other kind of wood. Notice a difference?
Any paper company that tried to make paper out of non-farmed trees would go out of business very quickly. That's true worldwide and has been for more than a century. Even in places where deforestation is a major problem, it's not because of the paper industry. Usually it's because the land is wanted (typically for agriculture). Sometimes it's an indirect result of other ecological problems (e.g., desertification can result from improper subsistence farming when there is inadequate education about basic techniques like crop rotation; once desertification gets going, it can degrade not just the farmland but the forests as well, and of course it also forces people to clear new land, which they generally then proceed to mismanage in the same way as the old land).
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.