Transparent Wood: Clark School Research in the News

wood

In a paper published in August in the peer-reviewed journal Advanced Energy Materials, Liangbing Hu of UMD’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Energy Research Center, and his team lay out research showing that their transparent wood provides better thermal insulation and lets in nearly as much light as glass, while eliminating glare and providing uniform and consistent indoor lighting. The findings advance earlier published work on their development of transparent wood.

“New research has brought the material back into the limelight, in an entirely unexpected way”, says an article on CNN.com, “The incredible possibilities of 'invisible' wood”, a followup to their original coverage of UMD’s transparent wood.

Two news services spread the news around the world: McClatchy’s wire service got the story out within the U.S. with an article titled ”Now this is cool: Scientists can make wood you can see through.” And in India, the Indo-Asian News Service’s news story “Wood windows cooler than those of glass” helped the report of the research spread through well-read outlets like The Hindu, The Statesman, and India Live Today.

The news also made waves in business and science news media. Business Insider and Tech Times both wrote about the research, and Science 2.0 and Science Codex carried the story.

Published August 30, 2016