I see a huge market for this! All the rednecks driving around with plywood in there broken window will be able to see again!
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Wow this is pretty awesome. Its interesting that they stripped the lignin out, and I am wondering if the trees are now immuno-compromised because of it.
Lignin at one point caused a massive change in our planet during the carboniferous period, because there were no creatures that could break it down. The atmosphere became incredibly enriched with oxygen allowing for living creatures to get much larger, and piles of trees could be found everywhere, in tact, piled on the ground. This went on for millennia until fungi evolved to finally be able to metabolize the lignin in the trees that were blanketing the planet.
It gives you quite a new perspective on what pollution is, as today we plant trees to rid ourselves of the pollutants we have helped introduce, where the same trees were once the largest source of pollution the planet had ever seen.
Its great that we are moving towards resources that can be recycled much more easily, and even on the cusp of developing ways to deal with the materials we have brought forth, which up until this point, have not been able to biodegrade.
I cant wait to get my hands on some of this stuff!
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Transparent slivers, this is exactly why I hate working with fiberglass.
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@takitus And remarkably, fungi are poised to break down many of our worst pollutants. http://www.fungi.com/blog/items/the-petroleum-problem.html
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Only if it falls, and you hear it.
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I’m sceptical about everything I read today!
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yeah hopefully we can end this plastic epidemic quickly, as well as the nuclear waste one. both of those issues are starting to have some promising looking solutions…
Wondering about the binder, Methyl methacrylate. It seems petrochemicals are involved.
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PMMA, poly methyl methacrylate is Plexiglass.
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No, it is real, not April fools.
oh man! that is pretty awesome. i can imagine all the crazy things that can be made with it.
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So does auto-focus work on transparent objects?
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One of the reasons the material we sell has paper on it. 
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New info on transparent wood.
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Very interesting article! Thanks for posting it @volivaa. I wonder how well it would take up dye after the lignin is removed? Maybe, just coloring the epoxy could make an interesting stained “glass” alternative… one more incentive to buying a vacuum pot.
A short video overview, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI2LrbVmryA&spfreload=10
Another DIY video overview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uH628dpa5k
And of course the instructable: http://www.instructables.com/id/Transparent-Wood/
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I think I am going to review and revive some of my ballistic armor research. Some of the spider silk/polymer combinations, when dissolved, might penetrate into this wood. Three other ideas occur to me. First, I wonder if this wood, when impregnated with the appropriate ions, could be used to make the resonant chamber of a wood based laser. Second, I wonder if the process I employed and discussed earlier in the forum to make artificial rubies and emeralds (Folded stone art by Jose Manuel Castro Lopez ) , could be incorporated with this wood to make gem encrusted transparent wood or solid ruby/emerald glass wood. Finally, this wood might be soaked and take up a wide variety on nano materials to construct all kinds of materials with exotic properties such as liquid crystalline display materials, variable focus lenses, magnetic wood, etc, etc.
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You dream big friend…
keep it up! 
I was thinking, that I might try to find some way to incorporate the “transwood” into some turnings 
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The problem with this idea is it takes at least 5 years to get any results.
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