This could someday be used to strengthen furniture and even replace some conventional building materials.

After years of development, an ultra-strong, wood-based material is commercially available for the first time. The creators of the chemically treated and compacted wood product claim it can be up to 20 times stronger than traditional wood and stronger than many conventional metal and alloy materials, including steel.

Liangbing Hu, a material scientist and the founder of Maryland-based InventWood, developed the substance, called "Superwood." He's previously developed unique wood materials, such as a transparent wood product. But it's strength that the company has been working on in recent years, and now, it has a viable product to bring to market.

Superwood is made through a soaking and compression system that makes the wood significantly denser. The process takes around a week to complete, but the resulting product is stronger and lighter than many conventional materials.

"From a chemical and a practical standpoint, it's wood," explained InventWood CEO Alex Lau (via CNN). "It looks just like wood, and when you test it, it behaves like wood," Lau added, "except it's much stronger and better than wood in pretty much every aspect that we've tested."



The first products for Superwood will be outdoor construction-based, such as decking and cladding. But as the company scales up production, it plans to offer internal materials like wall panelling and eventually construction materials. One early idea for its use was to replace metal components in furniture, which could help reduce their weight and cost and give them greater longevity by preventing sagging.

Other grander suggestions include building entire buildings out of Superwood. Hu claimed these would be up to four times lighter than conventional buildings. Superwood also requires up to 90% less carbon to produce than steel, so it has the potential to be environmentally friendly, too.
  
Source: extremetech.com