新奇事件簿 华人科学家造出透明木头

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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."

科学家掀起木头革命。造出透明木头。许多生活用品的使用和制作方式将彻底发生改变。透明木头将替代玻璃，还可应用于窗户和桌子制作，苹果手机屏幕以及其它建筑材料。该项发明来自美国马里兰大学。通过多种手段，科学家将显色化学物质提取出来。科学家胡良兵表示：“透明度如此之高出乎我们的意料。并为替代玻璃和许多光学材料提供可能。

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.

此次实验对象是锻木。将它在沸水中浸泡约两个小时，水中放入钠，氢氧化钠等其它化学剂。在煮沸过程中，显色分子木质素消失。最终，无色细胞让木头变透明。透明木头比玻璃的强度更强，危险性更低。且能更好地隔离冷空气，也可以生物降解。研究还处初期阶段，目前仅适用于10乘10厘米的木头，厚度不得超过1厘米。研究人员将集中精力扩大适用范围。