The mechanical performance of wood is limited, owning to its porous structure. Attempts has been conducted to densify the wood for reducing its porosity so that enhancing the mechanical performance. In this work, a simple and green vacuum assisted resin transfer molding technique (VARAM) is applied to moderately delignified wood for ultra-high performance woody composites. The tensile modulus and strength of prepared woody composite are raised to 10 GPa and 316 MPa, respectively, which are approximately 3 and 5 times higher than those of natural wood control samples. It is probably due to the high compression rate, i.e., approximately 80%. The SEM observation exhibits that the porous structures of wood are almost fully filled by epoxy resin. The reported woody composites are within the highest value range obtained from wood-based composites by using fast, effective, and scalable technology.

Densification of delignified wood structure for high-performance structural material

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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