In the future, a smartphone screen could be made with a surprise material!

In the future, smartphones may have a display not made of glass and plastic. Researchers, in fact, are working on the use of transparent wood as a potential alternative to the two materials mentioned above. In particular, a report from Scientific American shed light on the researcher’s work Lars Berglund of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and researchers fromUniversity of Maryland (UM).

Getting to the heart of the news, a process has been discovered that allows the modification or removal of a substance known as lignin. This glue-like substance is what holds together the cells that transport water and nutrients in a tree, among other things, giving it its typical brown color. Researchers they removed or bleached the lignin to remove the colorthen they filled it with epoxy resin to make it transparent.

Among other things, thanks to numerous tests, researchers have discovered that wood is transparent It is three times stronger than plexiglass and 10 times stronger than glass. Therefore, also thanks to its thin profile, this material is seen as a potentially important alternative to glass and plastic for screens.

Furthermore, it is also considered as a Possible candidate for replacing window glass. In any case, however, transparent wood is not yet as environmentally sustainable as glass since epoxy resin is a plastic product derived from petroleum. However, the two research groups are working on more environmentally sustainable substitutes such as hydrogen peroxide with UV radiation and a bio-based polymer created from citrus peels.