Making transparent wood

Hi NileRed, This turned out pretty good after polishing! I was surprised to see the text. You mentioned at the end that it was slightly yellow but I'm not sure that that is really the case. The paper you were comparing it against has fluorescent whitening agents to make it appear much whiter. It also shifts the hue of the paper to be slightly bluer than the lighting. The wood sample was probably absorbing the UV light that would activate the FWAs in the paper, so where the wood was covering the paper you were not getting these added short wavelengths, making the paper behind the wood yellower than the paper around the wood. Happy to explain more! Nice video

Was reading this paper today, and remembered your video: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/advs.202100559

Paul Anguiano

Maybe you could use tissue paper instead of wood and stack it up in thick layers.

Dominik Wondrousch

Hey Nigel, have a looksy at shoptime's video on stabilising resin, he leaves it under vacuum overnight which could help with the trapped air bubbles but this has to be the best attempt on youtubes so far! ❤️

Max

Watched with my son, he was rooting for you the whole way!

Awesome video, thanks for sharing Nile only mistake I saw was at 4:54 with the 100ml but I see someone else has already alerted you. Hope the move into the new lab went well, glad you're back!

I think people have tried infusing aerogel with plastic. I have never seen the result though. I think it might end up just looking like a piece of plastic. I could probably make the gel inside the wood. I have no idea what it would look like. I think one issue though is that the refractive index of water is about 1.33 and the cellulose is around 1.53. It is far enough that you probably wouldn't get "clarity" from it. The wood would probably look similar to how it was after the solvent washed. I think if you then did the aerogel procedure on it, it would still look similar. I could be wrong though.

Nile Red

This project seems really similar to your aerogel project, in that both are a large porous structure. From your last video, I learned that trees are basically really tall capillary tubes. And here, you're performing multiple solvent washings, just like the aerogel project. - Would epoxy also work for aerogel? - Could the treated wood be infused with the aerogel precursor? (not sure what that would create, but could be interesting)

Stephen Gillie

This is incredible! I always look forward to your uploads and they never fail to amaze and entertain me

AndreUwU

Do you think it would benefit from a vacuum degassing, possibly with some heating, before putting it in the resin? And I was trying to think of a liquified gas that could be used at close to room temperature and was thinking butane/propane, but I think a pressure chamber with CO2 would probably be better :)

Jeremy Jorgensen

I think i saw this video like a couple months ago, is this like a remastered version that’s better

Was just watching a livestream by ElectroBOOM. He was talking about how cool graphite was and did a cool little demo with it. Electro chemistry would be a cool collaboration, just throwing that out there...

Hmm yes the Quacks that think you can cure anything with NaClO2! Have you made plastic polymers from PVP? Interesting video. PVP reminds me of that stuff in heat and cold it warped a lot.

Daniel Blake Shoemaker

It could definitely be interesting to talk to him! For this process though, the biggest limitation was the cellulose itself. You need to modify it even more if you want to get it "perfectly transparent." Also, I didnt actually want it to be "perfect" though. I wanted it to look like a mixture of plastic and wood.

Nile Red

What do you mean? On youtube? Itll be posted tomorrow

Nile Red

Yeah, I agree with you. I just call it that because that is what everyone calls it. In the end, it's mostly plastic though. I think the problem with doing your suggestion is that it wouldnt be very strong. I think the newer methods of not removing the lignin are the best. Instead, the lignin is just bleached white. It makes a piece that is WAY stronger. That is actually how the authors of that viral paper did it.

Nile Red

The problem with the vertical pores is that it isnt very strong. You lose almost all of the strength of the wood. It would also be almost the same transparency. My current limitation was mostly the cellulose itself, and not the process I used. The cellulose is hydrophilic because it has a lot of hydroxyl groups, but the resin (MMA or epoxy) is hydrophobic. This makes it almost impossible to fully penetrate the cellulose. The same authors actually have a method to pretreat the cellulose to block the hydroxyl groups. They were able to make a 0.7cm thick piece and it just looks like a hazy piece of plastic.

Nile Red

When is the final thing?

This is really better described as "reinforced acrylic plastic" than as "transparent wood". You might also try doing this to a sheet of cellulose pulp (such as cotton linters pulp, available in small quantities for hand papermaking). This lets you skip all the delignification process, the final solvent extraction (the vacuum just has to remove air), and it also means that you will have similar strength properties in all directions.

Kevin Martin

Just a minor observation, but I think you went a step back from the original experiment you tried, where you sliced the wood so the pores and fibers were vertical, making the infusion and bleaching steps more effective. They definitely sell large, long sections of balsa, so just a thought.

Larry B

I'm a philosopher and not a chemist, but seeing the incredible lengths science goes to for achieving its ends is remarkable. I really love the detail, process, and presentation of your content

You should contact Peter Brown for some tips on resins and next time we won't see it at all (although that last piece came out really good). I like that you're keeping some of the original sounds in the video.

Marta

Love the shirt!!! 🔥🔥🔥💯

uh oh, ill fix that

Nile Red

5:27: I think there's an extra O in the formula for acetic acid.

Marc Ethier

You have been missed!

André Forcier

haha yes, Im back!!

Nile Red

The chemist boy is back!!!!!!!!!!!!

Coby Tang

Oh right, Ill fix that! Also, I tried with silicone. The problem is that the methacrylate seem to mess it up. I did a few small tests and it made the silicone get really wrinkled. That was in an open mould though and maybe it would work if I squished it between plates.

Nile Red

So glad to have you back, Nile! Corrections to the video: - At 4:55, the caption at the top says "Added 100mL water", but the video shows and your narration says it was 125mL. I really liked the reaction shots after the first time taking it out of the oven. Great job overall! Really nice to see detailed video on each attempt along the way instead of rushing to the final product. This reminds me a lot of the epoxy resin art that my wife is currently making. There are a lot of steps involved in trying to ensure no bubbles and an even, clean surface. I'm curious why they went with glass to hold the wood. The rule I learned for molding and casting is that you use a soft mold for hard casts and a hard mold for soft casts. In your case, casting the acrylic would suggest the use of a soft mold, such as silicone. You could still squish it between glass, wood, or anything else you need to provide even pressure, but with a sheet of silicone between your weight and the acrylic, the silicone would easily peel off of the solid acrylic piece.

James Cooper

In my experience with materials chemistry, it looks like those washing steps were most likely solvent exchange similar to the aerogel prep (if you were doing that kind of work in the research lab, you would actually most likely dry the gel by exchanging the alcohol with acetone, then acetone for CO2). Basically, it just preserves the internal structure of the wood: Water has an incredibly high vapour pressure, so it won't evaporate very easily, nor will it exchange efficiently with the resin. Ethanol is more volatile than water, so exchange with ethanol (and eventually acetone) makes this resin exchange easier (and more efficient), and thus preserves the internal structure of the wood more effectively. The better this structure is preserved, the more transparent and strong it'll be :)

That was great. Maybe there's another better method out there that you may find in a few years ;D

Literally yesterday I was looking at your channel like "Hmmm... where's NileRed been?". Well there you are! Hope the move went well.

I can see what you mean. I know there were some parts where I felt it was a lot. I'll look into taking some out

Nile Red

Awesome video. My only critique would be that you used the "dropping or slamming or banging objects" gag too much.

New nilered video: Best moment of the month

Mr. Ott

:D

Looks like it's improved since last time, gonna watch after class

Oh hell yes!

ARPLATINUM

Ong! The original video was what introduced me to you. Cant wait to get the time to watch this!

Willam Legens

I was wondering how you were doing since the danger garage.

kn0tsin

This looks amazing

Housane

Great that you’re back and that looks so cool!!!!!!!