InventWood is about to mass produce wood that’s stronger than steel

It sounds like a staff of science fiction but it is actually from a lab in Maryland.

In 2018, the material scientist of the University of Maryland was Liangbing Hu Made in a way Turn Common wood Into a component of stronger to steel. It looks like it is discovering another title that will not make it from the lab.

“All these people came to him,” said Alex Lau, the CEO Inventwood“He’s like that, okay, it’s amazing, but I’m a university professor. I don’t know what to do about it.”

Instead of quitting, Hu spent the next few years to refine the technology, reduced the time to make this material from more than a week to several hours. Soon, it was ready for commercialization and he licensed the technology inventwood.

Now, the first batches of the Superwood startup will begin this summer.

“At this point, this is the first type of commercial plant to come out of the commercial plant-so we are focusing on the applications of our skin,” said Lau. “Finally we would like to go to the bones of the building. Ninety percent of the carbon effect from the building is concrete and steel in building buildings.”

To make the factory, Inventwood has collected $ 15 million on the first closure of the round in a series. This round was run by the Grantham Foundation with the participation of Baruch Future Ventures, Builders VC and Muus Climate Partners, the company exclusively informed TechCrunch.

Inventwood superwood products start regularly with wood, mostly composed of two compounds, cellulose and liginin. The goal is to strengthen the cellulose already present in the wood. “Cellulose nanocristal is actually stronger than carbon fiber,” said Lau.

He said the company treats it to correct liginin in wood with “food industry” chemicals, and then compresses the results to increase hydrogen bond between cellulose molecules.

“We can minimize the material by 4x and you may think, ‘Oh, it will be four times stronger, because its fiber is four times higher’ ‘but it is 10 times stronger because of all these extra bonds,” said Lau.

The result is a component that is ten times better, with 50% more expansive energy than steel with weight ratio that the company says. It is rated a fire in the class, or is extremely resistant to the flame and is rotten and pest resistant. With some polymer abortion, it can be stable for outdoor use like siding, decking or roof. The first products in Inventwood will be the frontal materials for commercial and high-resident buildings, Lau said.

The material also focuses on compressed colors. He added, “You’ve finished with something that looks like this rich, tropical hard wood.”

In the end, Inventwood is planning to use wooden chips to create a structural beam that does not require completion. “Imagine a sample of Lau Superwood,” Imagine your i-beams. ” “These are beautiful, walnots, as beautiful as Ip are these are natural colors wee