Transparent wood composite, systems and method of fabrication

A method of fabrication of a wood-based light transmitting system, comprising steps of:

• (a) pre-cutting a wood block from a natural wood in a pre-determined angular relationship to natural internal channels of the natural wood to obtain a pre-cut wood block, the natural internal channels having walls formed from cellulose-containing material and being filled with lignin,
• (b) removing the lignin from natural internal channels of said pre-cut wood block, thus forming a lignin-devoid wood block, and
• (c) sequentially infiltrating said natural internal channels in said lignin-devoid wood block with a filling polymer so as to obtain a wood composite member,
• wherein a refractive index of the filling polymer is such that the wood composite member is transparent and has a transmittance from 85% to 95% for light having a wavelength in a range of 400 nm to 1100 nm,
• wherein the filling polymer is polyvinylpyrrolidone,
• wherein the transparent wood composite member has an optical haze from 85% to 100% for light having a wavelength in the range of 400 nm to 1100 nm,
• wherein the step (b) comprises:
• preparing a lignin removal solution by mixing a solution of NaOH in deionized water, and a solution of Na2SO3 in deionized water,
• boiling said pre-cut wood block in said lignin removal solution,
• rinsing said pre-cut wood block in hot distilled water, and
• boiling said rinsed pre-cut wood block in a bleaching solution containing a solution of H202 in distilled water until a color of the pre-cut wood block disappears,
• thereby obtaining the lignin-devoid wood block;
• and
• wherein the step (c) comprises:
• immersing said lignin-devoid wood block in a container of said filling polymer in a liquid phase thereof,
• degassing said liquid filling polymer under a pressure of 200 Pa,
• applying atmospheric pressure to the liquid filling polymer to promote infiltration of the filling polymer into the internal channels of the lignin-devoid wood block,
• repeating said atmospheric pressure application at least once, thus obtaining a liquid polymer infiltrated wood block,
• maintaining the liquid polymer infiltrated wood block in said container undisturbed at a temperature of 30° C.-60° C. until the filling polymer solidifies, thus obtaining a solid polymer infiltrated wood block, and
• removing said solid polymer infiltrated wood block from the container, thus obtaining said transparent wood composite member.