A new startup claims it can mass-produce "Superwood," a material that's stronger and lighter than steel, with 90 percent lower carbon emissions compared to the widely used alloy.

InventWood, the company behind the material, says its new product "has the capacity to substitute up to 80 percent of steel used globally," and "reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 2 gigatons."

According to the firm, its Superwood has up to 50 percent more tensile strength compared to steel, has "minimal expansion and contraction," and a Class A fire rating — all crucial details for architects who might someday use Superwood in their buildings.

As TechCrunch reports, the startup has already secured $15 million in a Series A funding round, which its founder, materials scientist Liangbing Hu, says will go toward the company's first factory.

The whole thing came about in 2018, when Hu published a landmark research paper detailing how to "transform bulk natural wood directly into a high-performance structural material."

It's a relatively simple process that involves boiling wood in a mixture of lye and sodium sulfite — widely available compounds often used as additives in industrial food operations.

Lu's paper says the strategy has been found to be "universally effective" for all species of lumber.

The research has been used to launch startups like Cambium, a "global tech platform for recycled wood," as Lu worked to refine the process and launch his own commercial venture.

But whether Superwood lives up to its founders claims is another story.

The materials science industry moves at a snail's pace, thanks to the many factors involved in approving new products for use in buildings. The caution only increases with lumber, which could suffer unforeseen changes due to time, moisture, heat, stress, and transportation, according to the Construction Specifier, a trade publication.

Cross-laminated timber (CLT), for example, while used in Europe for decades, has had a tough time catching on in the US, as untested American manufacturers rush their products to market and architects struggle to find construction firms with CLT experience.

That's led to incidents like the Peavy Hall collapse at Oregon State University, where a 1,000-pound section of a newly constructed CLT building caved in on a lower floor.

Prior to the collapse, manufacturers charmed regulators and project managers with similar promises of their product's strength and environmental impact.

At the moment, it seems like InventWood is taking it slow and building out its enterprise selling Superwood as a decorative material, rather than structural beams.

"Right now, coming out of this first-of-a-kind commercial plant — so it’s a smaller plant — we're focused on skin applications," the company's CEO Alex Lau told TechCrunch, referencing building skins. "Eventually we want to get to the bones of the building."

Whether they do will depend on it gaining the confidence of architects and engineers, a process which will require years of patience. As with all startups, it's one thing to build it out on paper — now they have to do it for real.

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Startup Claims Its "Superwood" Is Stronger Than Steel