Structure–property–function relationships of natural and engineered wood

Nature Reviews Materials, Journal Year: 2020, Volume and Issue: 5(9), P. 642 - 666

Published: May 4, 2020

Language: Английский

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Highly Compressible Wood Sponges with a Spring-like Lamellar Structure as Effective and Reusable Oil Absorbents

ACS Nano, Journal Year: 2018, Volume and Issue: 12(10), P. 10365 - 10373

Published: Oct. 1, 2018

Aerogels derived from nanocellulose have emerged as attractive absorbents for cleaning up oil spills and organic pollutants due to their lightweight, exceptional absorption capacity, sustainability. However, the majority of aerogels based on bottom-up fabrication process still lack sufficient mechanical robustness because disordered architecture with randomly assembled cellulose nanofibrils, which is an obstacle practical application absorbents. Herein, we report effective strategy create anisotropic cellulose-based wood sponges a special spring-like lamellar structure directly natural balsa wood. The selective removal lignin hemicelluloses via chemical treatment broke thin cell walls wood, leading wave-like stacked layers upon freeze-drying. A subsequent silylation reaction allowed growth polysiloxane coatings skeleton surface. resulting silylated sponge exhibited high compressibility (reversible compression 60%) elastic recovery (∼99% height retention after 100 cycles at 40% strain). showed excellent oil/water selectivity capacity 41 g g-1. Moreover, absorbed oils can be recovered by simple squeezing, porous maintained oil-absorption multiple squeezing-absorption cycles, displaying recyclability. Taking advantage unidirectional liquid transport sponge, oil-collecting device was successfully designed continuously separate contaminants water. Such easy, low-cost, scalable top-down approach holds great potential developing reusable separation.

Language: Английский

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A Clear, Strong, and Thermally Insulated Transparent Wood for Energy Efficient Windows

Advanced Functional Materials, Journal Year: 2019, Volume and Issue: 30(1)

Published: Nov. 18, 2019

Abstract The energy used for regulating building temperatures accounts 14% of the primary consumed in U.S. One‐quarter this is leaked through inefficient glass windows cold weather. development transparent composites could potentially provide affordable window materials with enhanced efficiency. Transparent wood as a promising material has presented desirable performances thermal and light management. In work, performance optimized toward an efficient that possesses following attributes: 1) high optical transmittance (≈91%), comparable to glass; 2) clarity low haze (≈15%); 3) toughness (3.03 MJ m −3 ) 3 orders magnitude higher than standard (0.003 ); 4) conductivity (0.19 W −1 K more 5 times lower glass. Additionally, sustainable material, carbon emissions scaling capabilities due its compatibility industry‐adopted rotary cutting methods. scalable, clarity, demonstrated current work can be employed significant environmental economic benefits.

Language: Английский

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Robust and Low-Cost Flame-Treated Wood for High-Performance Solar Steam Generation

ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Journal Year: 2017, Volume and Issue: 9(17), P. 15052 - 15057

Published: April 12, 2017

Solar-enabled steam generation has attracted increasing interest in recent years because of its potential applications power generation, desalination, and wastewater treatment, among others. Recent studies have reported many strategies for promoting the efficiency by employing absorbers based on carbon materials or plasmonic metal nanoparticles with well-defined pores. In this work, we report that natural wood can be utilized as an ideal solar absorber after a simple flame treatment. With ultrahigh absorbance (∼99%), low thermal conductivity (0.33 W m-1 K-1), good hydrophilicity, flame-treated localize heating at evaporation surface enable solar-thermal ∼72% under intensity 1 kW m-2, it thus represents renewable, scalable, low-cost, robust material applications.

Language: Английский

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Scalable and Highly Efficient Mesoporous Wood‐Based Solar Steam Generation Device: Localized Heat, Rapid Water Transport

Advanced Functional Materials, Journal Year: 2018, Volume and Issue: 28(16)

Published: Feb. 21, 2018

Abstract Solar steam generation is regarded as one of the most sustainable techniques for desalination and wastewater treatment. However, there has been a lack scalable material systems with high efficiency under 1 Sun. A solar device designed utilizing crossplane water transport in wood via nanoscale channels preferred thermal direction decoupled to reduce conductive heat loss. 80% Sun 89% 10 Suns achieved. Surprisingly, crossplanes perpendicular mesoporous can provide rapid pits spirals. The cellulose nanofibers are circularly oriented around highly aligned along spirals draw across lumens. Meanwhile, anisotropic conduction utilized, which better insulation than widely used super‐thermal insulator Styrofoam (≈0.03 W m −1 K ). exhibits conductivity 0.11 . redirects absorbed in‐plane while impeding loss water. promising cost‐effective large‐scale application ambient irradiance.

Language: Английский

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Highly Compressible, Anisotropic Aerogel with Aligned Cellulose Nanofibers

ACS Nano, Journal Year: 2017, Volume and Issue: 12(1), P. 140 - 147

Published: Dec. 19, 2017

Aerogels can be used in a broad range of applications such as bioscaffolds, energy storage devices, sensors, pollutant treatment, and thermal insulating materials due to their excellent properties including large surface area, low density, conductivity, high porosity. Here we report facile effective top-down approach fabricate an anisotropic wood aerogel directly from natural by simple chemical treatment. The has layered structure with structural the destruction cell walls removal lignin hemicellulose. results having good mechanical compressibility fragility resistance, demonstrated reversible compression 60% stress retention ∼90% after 10 000 cycles. Moreover, curved layers stacking layer-by-layer aligned cellulose nanofibers inside each individual layer enables have conductivity anisotropy factor ∼4.3. An extremely 0.028 W/m·K perpendicular alignment direction 0.12 along achieved. is not only much lower than that material (by ∼3.6 times) but also most commercial insulation materials. low-cost, scalable, simple, yet effective, representing promising for fabrication high-quality

Language: Английский

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Anisotropic, lightweight, strong, and super thermally insulating nanowood with naturally aligned nanocellulose

Science Advances, Journal Year: 2018, Volume and Issue: 4(3)

Published: March 2, 2018

There has been a growing interest in thermal management materials due to the prevailing energy challenges and unfulfilled needs for insulation applications. We demonstrate exceptional capabilities of large-scale, hierarchal alignment cellulose nanofibrils directly fabricated from wood, hereafter referred as nanowood. Nanowood exhibits anisotropic properties with an extremely low conductivity 0.03 W/m·K transverse direction (perpendicular nanofibrils) approximately two times higher 0.06 axial hierarchically aligned within highly porous backbone. The anisotropy enables efficient dissipation along direction, thereby preventing local overheating on illuminated side while yielding improved backside that cannot be obtained isotropic insulators. nanowood also shows emissivity <5% over solar spectrum ability effectively reflect energy. Moreover, is lightweight yet strong, owing effective bonding between high compressive strength 13 MPa 20 at 75% strain, which exceeds other materials, such silica polymer aerogels, Styrofoam, wool. excellent management, abundance, biodegradability, mechanical strength, mass density, manufacturing scalability make this material attractive practical

Language: Английский

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Bioinspired Wood Nanotechnology for Functional Materials

Advanced Materials, Journal Year: 2018, Volume and Issue: 30(19)

Published: Feb. 22, 2018

It is a challenging task to realize the vision of hierarchically structured nanomaterials for large-scale applications. Herein, biomaterial wood as biotemplate functionalization at multiple scales discussed, provide an increased property range this renewable and CO2 -storing bioresource, which available low cost in large quantities. The Progress Report reviews emerging field functional materials view specific features structural template novel nanotechnological approaches development wood-polymer composites wood-mineral hybrids advanced profiles new functions.

Language: Английский

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A water lily–inspired hierarchical design for stable and efficient solar evaporation of high-salinity brine

Science Advances, Journal Year: 2019, Volume and Issue: 5(7)

Published: July 5, 2019

In recent years, interfacial solar vapor generation has shown great potential in realizing desalination and wastewater treatment with high energy conversion efficiency. However, evaporation rate cannot be maintained because of the seemingly unavoidable fouling or salt accumulation on absorbers. The degradation accelerates as solute concentration increases. Here, we demonstrate a water lily-inspired hierarchical structure that enables efficient (~80% solar-to-vapor efficiency) out high-salinity brine [10 weight % (wt %)] containing heavy metal ions (30 wt %). More notably, neither decrease nor absorbers was observed during entire process until were completely separated. With capabilities stable high-rate effective separation from water, it is expected this technology can have direct implications various fields such treatment, sea-salt production, recycling.

Language: Английский

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Rich Mesostructures Derived from Natural Woods for Solar Steam Generation

Joule, Journal Year: 2017, Volume and Issue: 1(3), P. 588 - 599

Published: Nov. 1, 2017

Language: Английский

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