Wood Nanotechnologies for Transparency, Fire Retardancy and Liquid Separation

In this thesis, wood nanotechnologies for transparent, fire-retardant and hydrophobic/lipophilic wood have been developed. There are two main parts; wood template preparation/processing concepts and materials design using these templates. In the wood template processing part, highly porous nanostructured wood templates are prepared. Relationships between processes and material structures are studied. Three chemical treatment methods are used. Lignin and/or chromophores are removed from cell wall, so that nanoscale pores are formed in the cell wall. For preparation of transparent wood, a lignin-retaining method improves physical properties of the template. The pore structures are characterized by scanning electron microscopy and gas adsorption measurement of specific surface area. The compositions of the templates are characterized. Compared with native wood, these templates have nanoscale porosity which provides opportunity for new types of wood modification. In the materials design part, wood nanotechnologies are used for transparent wood as well as for hydrophobic/lipophilic and fire-retardant wood. Two main strategies are used: i) nanoparticles are embedded inside the cell wall; ii) polymers are impregnated in lumen space, and sometimes also inside the cell wall. The transparent wood is prepared by MMA monomer/oligomer impregnation of lumen space. MMA has similar refractive index to the delignified template, so that scattering is reduced and transparent wood with favorable optical and mechanical properties is obtained. The structure and functional properties are studied. Laminated transparent plywood is designed to modify mechanical properties. Transparent wood and transparent plywood are demonstrated in applications combining loadingbearing properties with optical performance such as luminescent properties. The highly porous wood template cell walls are also impregnated with colloidal montmorillonite clay or epoxy/amine solutions to modify the cell wall and form nanostructured biocomposites. The structure and properties of the two materials are investigated; wood/clay hybrids for flame-retardancy and wood/epoxy biocomposites for oil/water separation.