{"id":904939,"date":"2025-10-23T14:34:23","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T20:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=904939"},"modified":"2025-10-23T14:34:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T20:34:25","slug":"superwood-thats-stronger-than-steel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/superwood-thats-stronger-than-steel\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Create \u2018Superwood\u2019 That\u2019s Stronger Than Steel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jacopo Prisco | CNN<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A US company has engineered a new type of wood that it says has up to 10 times the strength-to-weight ratio of steel, while also being up to six times lighter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSuperwood\u201d has just launched as a commercial product, manufactured by InventWood, a company co-founded by material scientist Liangbing Hu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over a decade ago, Hu set out on a quest to reinvent one of the oldest building materials known to humankind. While working at the University of Maryland\u2019s Center for Materials Innovation, Hu, who\u2019s now a\u00a0professor at Yale<\/a>, found innovative ways to re-engineer wood. He even made it\u00a0transparent<\/a>\u00a0by removing part of one of its key components, lignin, which gives wood its color and some of its strength.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His real goal, however, was to make wood stronger, using cellulose, the main component of plant fiber and \u201cthe most abundant biopolymer on the planet,\u201d according to Hu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The breakthrough came in 2017, when Hu first strengthened regular wood by chemically treating it to enhance its natural cellulose, making it a better construction material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wood was first boiled in a bath of water and selected chemicals, then hot-pressed to collapse it at the cellular level, making it significantly denser. At the end of the weeklong process, the resulting wood had a strength-to-weight ratio \u201chigher than that of most structural metals and alloys,\u201d according to the study\u00a0published<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>in the journal Nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, after years of Hu perfecting the process and filing over 140 patents, Superwood has launched commercially.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Superwood is made using real wood, which is chemically treated and then compressed. Courtesy InventWood<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom a chemical and a practical standpoint, it\u2019s wood,\u201d explained InventWood CEO Alex Lau, who joined the business in 2021. In buildings, that would allow for structures potentially up to four times lighter than today, Lau said, meaning they would be more earthquake resistant, as well as easier on foundations, making construction faster and easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt looks just like wood, and when you test it, it behaves like wood,\u201d Lau added, \u201cexcept it\u2019s much stronger and better than wood in pretty much every aspect that we\u2019ve tested.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Competitive with steel?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

InventWood is manufacturing Superwood in its plant in Frederick, Maryland, and although the production time is now measured in hours rather than days, it will take some time to scale up, Lau said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially, the company plans to focus on external applications such as decking and cladding, before moving on to internal applications such as wall paneling, flooring and home furniture sometime next year.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople always complain that furniture breaks down over time, and that\u2019s often because it sags or breaks down at the joints, which are currently made of metal because wood isn\u2019t strong enough,\u201d said Lau. Superwood could be used to replace these parts, he said, as well as screws, nails and other metal fasteners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, Lau projects that an entire building could be constructed out of Superwood, although that would require more testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much like in Hu\u2019s original experiment, the wood is strengthened via a chemical process that alters the basic structure of the cellulose and is <\/strong>compressed very tightly without springing back. \u201cIn theory, we can use any kind of wooden material,\u201d Lau said. \u201cIn practice, we\u2019ve tested with 19 different kinds of species of wood as well as bamboo, and it\u2019s worked on all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

InventWood says Superwood is up to 20 times stronger than regular wood and up to 10 times more resistant to dents, because the natural porous structure of the wood has been collapsed and toughened. That makes it impervious to fungi and insects. It also gets the highest rating in standard fire resistance tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

InventWood says its tests show Superwood is up to 20 times stronger than regular wood. Courtesy InventWood<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Superwood currently costs more than regular wood and also has a larger manufacturing carbon footprint, but Lau said that compared to steel manufacturing, the carbon emissions are 90% lower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that the target is \u201cnot to be cheaper than wood, but to be competitive with steel,\u201d when manufacturing scales up.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Timber trend<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Other types of engineered wood have existed as construction materials for a long time, but InventWood says that these are simply rearranged pieces of wood that are held together with adhesives, rather than wood that has been altered at the molecular level like Superwood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Timber construction has had a resurgence in recent years, and wood is now used to build skyscrapers. The city of Milwaukee \u2014 which already hosts the world\u2019s tallest timber tower, the 284-foot (87-meter) Ascent MKE \u2014 has revealed\u00a0plans<\/a>\u00a0to build an even taller one, at a whopping 600 feet (183 meters) in height.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, concrete is by far the most-used construction material on Earth, and even though its production has plateaued in recent years, making concrete\u00a0generates<\/a>\u00a07% of the world\u2019s global carbon emissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip Oldfield, an architecture professor and head of the School of Built Environment at the University of New South Wales, in Australia, who is not involved with InventWood, said timber has environmental benefits over many other building materials as its production processes are less intensive than steel and concrete, and timber stores CO2 in its woody biomass through photosynthesis. \u201cWood products can be considered a long-term carbon storage system, and construction with wood could see our cities \u2018lock in\u2019 carbon emission in buildings for long periods of time,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, he points out that existing engineered timber products are already competing with steel and concrete. \u201cThe barrier to more timber buildings isn\u2019t really the need for more strength,\u201d he explained, \u201cit\u2019s that the construction industry is risk averse and slow to change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To see more timber in buildings, he argued, we need better education, pilot projects and improved regulatory frameworks: \u201cBut stronger timber products like this Superwood could allow architects to create larger spans and more durable finishes with timber, which would certainly be beneficial and could foster greater timber uptake.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

When one of your cases is in need of a construction expert, estimates, insurance appraisal or umpire services in defect or insurance disputes – please call Advise & Consult, Inc. at 888.684.8305, or email experts@adviseandconsult.net<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jacopo Prisco | CNN A US company has engineered a new type of wood that it says has up to 10 times the strength-to-weight ratio of steel, while also being up to six times lighter. \u201cSuperwood\u201d has just launched as a commercial product, manufactured by InventWood, a company co-founded by material scientist Liangbing Hu. Over… Continue reading Scientists Create \u2018Superwood\u2019 That\u2019s Stronger Than Steel<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[9895,12,12238],"class_list":["post-904939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-construction-2","tag-advise-consult","tag-construction","tag-superwood","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nScientists Create \u2018Superwood\u2019 That\u2019s Stronger Than Steel - 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