{"id":115455,"date":"2020-11-04T19:22:17","date_gmt":"2020-11-05T03:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/luminescent-wood-could-light-up-homes-of-the-future"},"modified":"2020-11-04T19:22:17","modified_gmt":"2020-11-05T03:22:17","slug":"luminescent-wood-could-light-up-homes-of-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/luminescent-wood-could-light-up-homes-of-the-future","title":{"rendered":"Luminescent wood could light up homes of the future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/luminescent-wood-could-light-up-homes-of-the-future.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The right indoor lighting can help set the mood, from a soft romantic glow to bright, stimulating colors. But some materials used for lighting, such as plastics, are not eco-friendly. Now, researchers reporting in <i>ACS Nano<\/i> have developed a bio-based, luminescent, water-resistant wood film that could someday be used as cover panels for lamps, displays and laser devices.<\/p>\n<p>Consumer demand for eco-friendly, <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/renewable+materials\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">renewable materials<\/a> has driven researchers to investigate wood-based thin films for optical applications. However, many materials developed so far have drawbacks, such as poor mechanical properties, uneven lighting, a lack of water resistance or the need for a petroleum-based polymer matrix. Qiliang Fu, Ingo Burgert and colleagues wanted to develop a luminescent wood film that could overcome these limitations.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers treated balsa wood with a solution to remove lignin and about half of the hemicelluloses, leaving behind a porous scaffold. The team then infused the delignified wood with a solution containing quantum dots\u2014semiconductor nanoparticles that glow in a particular color when struck by ultraviolet (UV) light. After compressing and drying, the researchers applied a hydrophobic coating. The result was a dense, water-resistant wood film with excellent mechanical properties. Under UV light, the quantum dots in the wood emitted and scattered an orange light that spread evenly throughout the film\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The right indoor lighting can help set the mood, from a soft romantic glow to bright, stimulating colors. But some materials used for lighting, such as plastics, are not eco-friendly. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Nano have developed a bio-based, luminescent, water-resistant wood film that could someday be used as cover panels for lamps, displays [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nanotechnology","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}