Kennesaw State University researcher Bharat Baruah believes transparent wood could serve as a viable alternative to the plastics that are discarded. Plastics are among the leading contributors to pollution worldwide.

Baruah, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry, is exploring whether specially processed transparent wood can replace plastic in consumer electronics, packaging, and many other goods as a more ecofriendly solution.

"It would be a game changer for sustainability,” said Baruah, who teaches in Kennesaw State’s College of Science and Mathematics. “Imagine eyeglasses made from transparent wood that detect fatigue in truck drivers by monitoring blinking patterns. Most food storage bags are made with plastic, too. If we can make a version with wood, it would be safer for the environment."

Baruah’s approach differs from existing transparent wood technologies. Many products on the market today are strengthened with epoxy resins that are not biodegradable. To address this, Baruah and alumna Ridham Raval are developing entirely natural materials to replace epoxy in transparent wood products inspired by centuries-old buildings made with natural cement mixtures. In this case, rather than replacing those components with epoxy, Baruah’s method uses egg whites and rice extract, making the wood stronger and more environmentally friendly, the researcher said.

Beyond its use in building material, Baruah said transparent wood has potential applications in consumer electronic devices like wearable sensors and solar panels. Future research projects will focus on increasing transparency of the wood and alternative conductive materials like graphene to maintain biodegradability and conductivity.

Other transparent uses
Transparent wood has been reported in Woodworking Network for years. 

For example, researchers at the University of Colorado developed a see-through aerogel made from wood that could replace air in double-glazed windows and make them as insulating as walls.

New Scientist recently reported on research by Ivan Smalyukh at the University of Colorado Boulder and his colleagues used nanofibres of cellulose to create an aerogel, a solid gel containing pockets of gas, that could function better than air in double glazing.

“We have a very unusual combination of properties, which is a very high transparency aerogel that also has very high thermal insulation,” Smalyukh said. “You could think about it as a pillow that keeps heat where you need it and at the same time you can see through it, so you can use it in a window.”

To make the aerogel, researchers suspended cellulose nanofibers from wood in water, then replaced the water with ethanol. Next, they dried the aerogel by raising the temperature and pressure, replacing the ethanol filling pockets in the material with air, then adding silicon compounds to the surface to make it water-repellent, preventing condensation when used in windows. An aerogel filling around 2.5 centimeters wide could make a window as insulating as a wall.

Some of this research started at the Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture who developed a transparent wood. As reported in Woodworking Network in 2020, FPL researcher Junyong Zhu developed the material, which the USDA says has the potential to outperform glass in nearly every way.

Zhu developed the material, which the USDA said has the potential to outperform glass in nearly every way. "While glass is the most common material used in window construction, it comes with a costly economic and ecological price," writes the FPL. "Heat easily transfers through glass, especially single pane, and amounts to higher energy bills when it escapes during cold weather and pours in when it’s warm."

The transparent wood is created when wood from the fast-growing, low-density balsa tree is treated to a room-temperature, oxidizing bath that bleaches it of nearly all visibility. The wood is then penetrated with a synthetic polymer called polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), creating a product that is virtually transparent.