Transparent Bamboo: A Fire-Resistant, Water-Repellent Alternative to Glass

Scientists in China have developed an innovative material — transparent bamboo — that could become a sustainable alternative to glass. Not only is this new material transparent, it’s also highly resistant to water, fire, and even smoke.

Today, glass remains the go-to material for transparent structures like windows, but it’s heavy, brittle, and not always strong. In recent years, scientists have sought to create alternative materials like transparent wood. However, it’s prone to fire and has limited supplies because trees grow slowly. In search of a more effective solution, a team of researchers from the Central South University of Forestry and Technology (CSUFT) turned to bamboo.

“Bamboo, often called the ‘second forest,’ grows faster and regenerates faster than wood, reaching maturity in just four to seven years,” explains lead researcher Caichao Wang. Bamboo produces four times more yield per acre than wood, making it a particularly efficient resource.

The process of creating transparent bamboo is similar to the method of processing wood: after removing the lignin responsible for opacity, the material is impregnated with sodium silicate, which changes the refraction of light, making it transparent. Additional processing gives bamboo water-repellent properties.

The final product is a three-layer structure consisting of layers of silane, silicon dioxide and sodium silicate. Such bamboo transmits up to 71.6% of light, is fire-resistant, waterproof and blocks smoke. From a mechanical point of view, it has high strength: the bending modulus reaches 7.6 GPa, and the tensile modulus is 6.7 GPa.

Transparent bamboo can be used not only in construction, but also as a substrate for solar panels, improving the efficiency of solar energy conversion by 15.29%. The researchers plan to continue working on large-scale production of this material and expanding its functionality.

The results of the study were published in the journal Research.

Source: ecosphere.press