American start-up InventWood has ‘reinvented wood from the inside out’ with a patented process that restructures the material’s molecules to make it ten times stronger than regular wood. Superwood is a more sustainable, lightweight alternative to concrete and steel in architectural applications. According to the company, the material is up to ten times stronger than regular wood and six times lighter than steel, as well as being resistant to water, insects, mold and mildew.

According to Alex Lau, CEO, InventWood: “Superwood corrects all the flaws you have in wood, but it’s still a wood. So you still get the benefits of wood, but you eliminate most of the drawbacks and you take it to the level of performing like steel.”

The first step to create Superwood is chemical modification of regular wood, which removes most of its lignin and hemicellulose while preserving the cellulose structure. This modified wood is then compressed to squeeze out all of the air and imperfections, which causes hydrogen bonds to form between the cellulose fibers, increasing the wood’s density by up to four times.

The material’s main benefit is a strength-to-weight ratio that is up to ten times greater than that of steel. This allows for a reduction in volume whilst ensuring similar strength in a smaller piece, which ultimately allows for more space in construction. Other benefits of the high-strength wood include its Class-A fire rating, which makes it suitable for construction in fire-prone areas.

Superwood can be customized by polishing, shaping or coating it to meet specific design and application requirements. It can be installed using standard woodworking techniques and can also be painted, stained or varnished like regular wood.

“What Superwood enables is that biomaterials can become the default way to build. Just as concrete and steel became the standard in many places, now we can say bio-based materials can be the standard – and society needs that,” concluded Lau.