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A research team led by the University of the Basque Country (EHU), together with Wuhan University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (China), was inspired by naturally occurring processes that give rise to fossilized wood (known as ancient buried wood), to develop a wood material that offers remarkable structural performance (termed as "BioStrong Wood" by the authors). Using the adequate combination of mechanical, chemical and biological treatments, it has been possible to modify the internal structure of the wood, achieving a level of mechanical resistance that exceeds that of stainless steel.

The research team has shown that the process developed can be applied to multiple wood types. That way, the results obtained provide the basis for developing biological materials with very high performance and which could, in the near future, replace materials of fossil origin (such as thermosetting resins, or high-performance thermoplastics) that are proving to be so problematic in environmental and social terms.

"Wood is one of the most accessible biological materials, but outside its conventional use, it is barely being explored for high-performance applications," said Erlantz Lizundia, Associate Professor at the Department of Graphic Design and Engineering Projects and researcher in the EHU's Life Cycle Thinking Group, and one of the lead authors of the study, together with Professor Chaoji Chen (Wuhan University).

"Our results show that it is possible to obtain materials with a very high mechanical performance and which are, in turn, economically viable and offer carbon capture capabilities."

The team used wood-feeding fungi combined with mechanical and chemical treatments, and succeeded in reconfiguring the molecular structure of wood-forming components and thus provide the material with high mechanical toughness. It was also possible to increase resistance to moisture, to high temperatures, and to extreme thermal shock events (e.g., from -196 潞C to 120 潞C).

What is more, when they analyzed the tensile strength, i.e. the maximum stress a material can withstand before breaking, they found that it was even higher than that of stainless steel (SAE 304), an alloy comprising highly scarce, expensive and potentially toxic materials (chromium, nickel).

Another contribution made by the study is the implementation of methodologies (life cycle assessment, techno-economic analysis) to quantify the environmental impact and economic cost of the materials developed. So not only were the scalability and feasibility of the process proven, but the fact that BioStrong Wood has a high capacity as a carbon sequestration material could also be confirmed.

Although further studies are needed to expand the processes that can be applied to other types of naturally occurring materials, this work constitutes a significant advance in the development of circular, sustainable materials that, in the medium term, can replace the non-renewable and highly polluting materials on which our economy is based.