Lovely idea. I would like to see a comparison of the energy requirement for hardening wood this way vs. making steel. Would give a better sense of whether this is a technology worth pursuing as one path toward decarbonising the future.
For example, they say 23 times harder in the article than regular wood. Wood has a Brinell scale of up to 7 although most is less. Times 23 that comes out to 161. Mild steel is 120. However hardened tool steel is 900.
For what they were showing, if you were going for "equivalent to steel", I'd expect to see a tap to secure the nail and then probably only two strokes to sink it. They tap it a hundred times, which begs the question of what would happen if you actually hit it.
Strength comes in many dimensions.
LIGNOLOC wooden nails are made from indigenous beech wood and boast a tensile strength similar to aluminium nails.
LIGNOLOC wooden nails are shot in pneumatically [using their specific nail-gun with reels of their nails].
LIGNOLOC wooden nails conserve tools and saw blades when post-processing wooden components in prefabricated buildings.
LIGNOLOC wooden nails do not cause any unattractive wood discolouration or leave any traces of corrosion, such as those left by steel nails.
LIGNOLOC wooden nails do not act as thermal bridges. This results in better insulation values and improved structural properties.
https://bioresources.cnr.ncsu.edu/resources/solubility-of-li...
DMSO is a by-product of cellulose production.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyl_sulfoxide#Synthesis_a...
Death (decomposition) is a critical part of the circle of life...
If we had “mined” plastic directly out of the ground, it would be fine to use (again from an emissions perspective), though not a net win since it would have already been “locked up” whereas wood only temporarily locks up hydrocarbons until it is cut down, used, and then ultimately decomposed. This would break that cycle.
From a non-emissions perspective, wood doesn’t have the same “microplastics” problem (although who knows what this bastardized wood might end up having).
In the meanwhile, we somehow stop focusing on the whole bunch of other problems, that definitely aren't gonna solve themselves as well. Like, the fact that the oceans are turning into a huge dumpster for plastics that aren't going to magically dissolve in the next couple of hundreds of years. Or like we are only concerned about burning oil not being "green energy", and somehow skip over the fact, that we are literally burning millions of tons of substance each day, that we cannot produce and that doesn't renew itself (practically speaking), while being the ONLY substance suitable for making thousands of materials that we use to build basically everything for the last 50 of years (and it doesn't seem like we are going to find a better alternative soon).