新奇事件簿 華人科學家造出透明木頭

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Scientists have come up with a revolutionary new use for wood. They have devised a way to make it transparent. This could totally change the way many things in our lives are used and made. See-through wood could one day replace glass and be used in windows and tables, for iPhone screens, and in a whole assortment of other building materials. The innovation has come from researchers at the University of Maryland in the USA. They experimented with different ways to extract the chemicals from wood that give it colour. Researcher Liangbing Hu said: "We were very surprised by how transparent it could go. This can really open applications that can potentially replace glass and some optical materials."

科學家掀起木頭革命。造出透明木頭。許多生活用品的使用和制作方式將徹底發(fā)生改變。透明木頭將替代玻璃，還可應用于窗戶和桌子制作，蘋果手機屏幕以及其它建筑材料。該項發(fā)明來自美國馬里蘭大學。通過多種手段，科學家將顯色化學物質提取出來?？茖W家胡良兵表示：“透明度如此之高出乎我們的意料。并為替代玻璃和許多光學材料提供可能。

The researchers worked with a small block of linden wood. They boiled it in water, sodium hydroxide and other chemicals for about two hours. A molecule called lignin, which gives wood its colour, disappeared during the boiling process. This left behind colourless cells, which effectively made the wood transparent. The see-through wood is a lot stronger and less dangerous than glass. It is better at insulating against the cold and it is biodegradable. Research is still in its infancy and the process can currently only be done on 10cm by 10cm blocks of wood that range in thickness between paper-thin and a centimeter thick. The researchers will now focus on applying the process on a much larger scale.

此次實驗對象是鍛木。將它在沸水中浸泡約兩個小時，水中放入鈉，氫氧化鈉等其它化學劑。在煮沸過程中，顯色分子木質素消失。最終，無色細胞讓木頭變透明。透明木頭比玻璃的強度更強，危險性更低。且能更好地隔離冷空氣，也可以生物降解。研究還處初期階段，目前僅適用于10乘10厘米的木頭，厚度不得超過1厘米。研究人員將集中精力擴大適用范圍。