Wood 373-2017

Making transparent wood composites

The following laboratory exercises will provide hands-on experience with delignification, wood
compositional analysis, resin infiltration and resin curing, along with material testing. These
laboratory experiments will allow the use of proper personal protection equipment, production
and handling of solutions and organic solvents, physical measurements of materials, and an
appreciation of the variability of working with natural materials such as wood.
Laboratory format
Lab 1 will take place over four lab sessions to make transparent wood composite. During the first
week of the lab lignin will be removed from wood veneers and washed with solvent to prepare
transparent wood. The second part of the lab 1 will be the characterization of the delignified
wood veneers through the optical microscope. During the third week of lab, the class will
infiltrate the transparent wood with a polymer. Each group will use a different polymer matrix
to compare their composite tensile properties with other groups during the last part of the lab.
Lab 1.1 Extraction of lignin from wood veneers
During this lab, you will prepare transparent wood templates to be used for polymer composites.
Procedure (modified from Biomacromolecules article on “ Optically transparent wood from a
nanoporous cellulosic template: combining functional and structural performance”)
Wood veneer pieces will have been dried in an oven for 24 hours at 105 °C and weighed prior to
bleaching. The wood will be bleached in a 1 wt % sodium chlorite (NaClO2) with acetate buffer
solution (pH 4.6) in a 50 mL tube. The reaction will occurs at 70 °C in a shaker bath for 6 hours.
Each student will have two pieces of veneers and in addition, each group will have one piece of
veneer for the lab.
During the lab, you will remove the bleaching solution from the veneers by washing with distilled
water and then using a solvent exchange procedure for “dehydrating” the samples by using
ethanol and acetone. The first washing is with 30 mL distilled water in order to remove excess
bleaching chemicals. Repeat washing three times for each set of solvents, prior to moving to the
next set. Next, the extracted samples are carefully washed with 30 mL of ethanol for 5 minutes
to dehydrate the samples. The third washing is 30 mL of a mixture of ethanol and acetone (1:1
by volume) and the final washing is with 30 mL of pure acetone. Each washing step will take 5
min and each washing is repeated three times before proceeding to the next wash solution.
After the samples have been washed with all solutions, the washed veneers will be placed in
the glass petri-dishes for drying and storage. Make sure you label the petri dishes with your
group number. The TA will store your samples in the desiccator under vacuum, until next lab.
Food for thought-- Washing the samples using this method is very laborious! Please think about
wood-water relationships and justify why we cannot take a short-cut with this process, just by
washing the sample with water and letting the sample air or oven-dry.