A bicycle helmet or a wall element made of delignified wood: designer Meri Zirkelbach dealt with concrete product ideas in her master’s thesis. Image: Empa / ETH Zürich
It can be deformed as required and is three times stronger than natural wood: the wood material developed by Marion Frey, Tobias Keplinger and Ingo Burgert at Empa and ETH Zurich has the potential to become a high-tech material. In the process, the researchers remove precisely the part of the wood that gives it its stability in nature: lignin. Wood is one of the oldest materials in the world. Wood is light, has excellent mechanical properties, regrows - and binds CO2. Against the background of the current climate debate, the last two properties in particular raise the question of how wood can be used even more and better. Ingo Burgert's research group at Empa and ETH Zurich have been investigating this question for years. Their aim is to improve the natural properties of wood and equip it with new functions that will broaden the application range for wood.
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