A highly transparent compressed wood prepared by cell wall densification

In this work, the top-down modification method is used to densify wood cell walls. The cell wall was simply compressed. The external force is applied to the delignified wood template by using a press to make the radial thickness of the wood template smaller, and finally, a more compact and uniform wood template with cell wall skeleton is obtained. Then, the resin with similar refractive index to cell wall is vacuum impregnated into the dense wood template, and the transparent compressed wood with high transparency is successfully obtained. The transmittance is increased by 34.1%, the haze decreased by 28.1%, and the transparent effect is more excellent through the cell wall densification of the delignification template. Moreover, the transparent compressed wood has better mechanical properties (maximum tensile strength was 113.75 MPa, Young's modulus was 2.276 GPa) and thermal stability. The method has successfully improved the function and structure of transparent wood, and the highly transparent compressed wood is a new functional material with application potential.