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Why wood pulp is world's new wonder material

newscientist.com

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Re: Why wood pulp is world's new wonder material

#21

Post by soperj »

cmaxwe wrote: post #18
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #14

tl;dr: US Forestry Service: We have too many trees ! How can we sell more of them in a declining building market? The US Forestry service (certainly by Bill Bryson) is regarded as in thrall with loggers (builds roads for access to heavy equipment, sells trees at a loss acting as a subsidy provider etc.) So the idea that the great new industry, that involves chopping down trees, should be owned by US forestry service,…

Probably good news for Canada too as we export a lot of trees to the US.

Canada is at the forefront here. Technology to mass produce NCC was developed by Domtar, and the largest plant is based in Windsor Quebec.

Re: Why wood pulp is world's new wonder material

#22

Post by hosh »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #14

tl;dr: US Forestry Service: We have too many trees ! How can we sell more of them in a declining building market? The US Forestry service (certainly by Bill Bryson) is regarded as in thrall with loggers (builds roads for access to heavy equipment, sells trees at a loss acting as a subsidy provider etc.) So the idea that the great new industry, that involves chopping down trees, should be owned by US forestry service,…

Apparently, the Indian government is funding research in producing nanocellulose out of bamboo:

http://icfre.gov.in/UserFiles/File/Projects/Thurst-Areas/lig...

I am also highly interested in:

  (1) Can nanocellulose or microfibrillated cellulose be made from recycled cardboard, and other forms of packaging we use to transport goods?

  (2) If (1), then can it be made in a machine the size of a Makerbot / Recyclebot?

  (3) If (2), can this material be extruded in a Makerbot-like device (computer controlled, cheap enough for makers

Re: Why wood pulp is world's new wonder material

#23

Post by TylerE »

sp332 wrote: post #8
tokenadult wrote: post #2

This brief article about current uses of wood pulp reminded me of something I read in a book back in the 1970s about a proposal to build an aircraft carrier during World War II (when there was a shortage of steel) out of a mixture of wood pulp and water ice. That material was called "pykrete," after the name of its inventor, Geoffrey Pyke. The shortage of steel was alleviated, and plenty of aircraft carriers construc…

I can't find footage, but Mythbusters had a pretty impressive episode where they tested various formulations of pykrete. Jamie's newspaper-based one seemed to be the strongest. A smallish piece of it held a pile of lead, plus Adam's entire weight, while he smacked it with a hammer repeatedly. They built a little boat out of it which disintegrated pretty quickly. The idea that you could build an aircraft carrier was d…

You have to remember that surface area increases with the SQUARE of size, but volume by the CUBE. So scale it up by a factor of 10 and you have 100x the surface and 1000x the volume, so it will melt much slower.

Scale it up by ANOTHER factor of 10, and it'll melt another factor of 10 slower, and possibly more. Building-size blocks of ice take months to melt, even in warm temps.

Re: Why wood pulp is world's new wonder material

#24

Post by koide »

baddox wrote: post #20
sp332 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't find footage, but Mythbusters had a pretty impressive episode where they tested various formulations of pykrete. Jamie's newspaper-based one seemed to be the strongest. A smallish piece of it held a pile of lead, plus Adam's entire weight, while he smacked it with a hammer repeatedly. They built a little boat out of it which disintegrated pretty quickly. The idea that you could build an aircraft carrier was d…

I would consider "plausible" and "ludicrous" to be mutually exclusive.

"plausible but ludicrous" can be parsed as "probable [that it would work] but ridiculous"

Re: Why wood pulp is world's new wonder material

#25

Post by sp332 »

baddox wrote: post #20
sp332 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't find footage, but Mythbusters had a pretty impressive episode where they tested various formulations of pykrete. Jamie's newspaper-based one seemed to be the strongest. A smallish piece of it held a pile of lead, plus Adam's entire weight, while he smacked it with a hammer repeatedly. They built a little boat out of it which disintegrated pretty quickly. The idea that you could build an aircraft carrier was d…

I would consider "plausible" and "ludicrous" to be mutually exclusive.

Militaries have a way of combining them. For example: "normal" aircraft carriers.

Re: Why wood pulp is world's new wonder material

#26

Post by tocomment »

soperj wrote: post #19
mistercow wrote: post #10

>it is made from a tightly packed array of needle-like crystals which have a strength-to-weight ratio that is eight times better than stainless steel. That's a pretty useless thing to say. What kind of strength? Tensile? Shear? Yield? Maybe this figure is buried somewhere in the paper they linked to, but not in any easy to find place.

Looks like they're probably talking about Tensile strength. ( http://www.celluforce.com/en/product_properties.php )

Does that put us in space elevator territory?

Re: Why wood pulp is world's new wonder material

#27

Post by justinator »

pkulak wrote: post #12

How long until people are buying $5000 bikes made of this stuff?

Well, every time I look out at the Molybdenum factory near me, I think, "maybe it's best I get a bike made out of something a little more sustainable."

Bring it on!

Although I guess there's Aluminum. And Titanium. And carbon fiber itself is getting recycling programs (however dubious those are). I'd like to see the impact the entire manufacturing process has on the environment. It doesn't matter what you make it out of, if you have to ship the damn thing half way across the world. Source the wood in Canada, manufacture it in Canada = a win(?)

Re: Why wood pulp is world's new wonder material

#28

Post by soperj »

pkulak wrote: post #12

How long until people are buying $5000 bikes made of this stuff?

I get that you're having a dig at the biking crowd, but the major cost of a $5000 bike is the components, not the carbon fiber frame. If the sheer strength is better than Carbon fiber, and still has the same strength to weight ratio, then it probably won't be too long.. especially if the cost is lower.

Re: Why wood pulp is world's new wonder material

#29

Post by rm999 »

sp332 wrote: post #8
tokenadult wrote: post #2

This brief article about current uses of wood pulp reminded me of something I read in a book back in the 1970s about a proposal to build an aircraft carrier during World War II (when there was a shortage of steel) out of a mixture of wood pulp and water ice. That material was called "pykrete," after the name of its inventor, Geoffrey Pyke. The shortage of steel was alleviated, and plenty of aircraft carriers construc…

I can't find footage, but Mythbusters had a pretty impressive episode where they tested various formulations of pykrete. Jamie's newspaper-based one seemed to be the strongest. A smallish piece of it held a pile of lead, plus Adam's entire weight, while he smacked it with a hammer repeatedly. They built a little boat out of it which disintegrated pretty quickly. The idea that you could build an aircraft carrier was d…

Here are some clips from the episode:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMKis4FPykw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQO4FDuW3PI

Re: Why wood pulp is world's new wonder material

#30

Post by rotten »

hosh wrote: post #22
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #14

tl;dr: US Forestry Service: We have too many trees ! How can we sell more of them in a declining building market? The US Forestry service (certainly by Bill Bryson) is regarded as in thrall with loggers (builds roads for access to heavy equipment, sells trees at a loss acting as a subsidy provider etc.) So the idea that the great new industry, that involves chopping down trees, should be owned by US forestry service,…

Apparently, the Indian government is funding research in producing nanocellulose out of bamboo: http://icfre.gov.in/UserFiles/File/Projects/Thurst-Areas/lig... I am also highly interested in: (1) Can nanocellulose or microfibrillated cellulose be made from recycled cardboard, and other forms of packaging we use to transport goods? (2) If (1), then can it be made in a machine the size of a Makerbot / Recyclebot? (3) I…

I'm kind of curious if this high tech paper can be folded like origami into interesting transparent and super strong creations?
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