Reengineering wood into a high-strength, and lightweight bio-composite material for structural applications

The preparation of wood composites involves long preparation steps and non-renewable matrices while generating lignin waste without high-value utilization. Here, we present a reengineering approach to developing a high-strength and lightweight bio-composite material through fractionating natural wood into highly porous delignified wood (DW) and lignin, synthesis of a lignin-based epoxy resin (LER), followed by composting the DW and the LER. The newly developed wood-based composite has drastically improved properties of hydrophobicity, antioxidation and thermal stability, and more notably extraordinary mechanical properties superior to many metal alloys. Hence the reengineered wood composite developed can be a renewable functional material for structural applications.