{"id":212908,"date":"2025-04-30T17:27:01","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T22:27:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/iron-fortified-lumber-could-be-a-greener-alternative-to-steel-beams"},"modified":"2025-04-30T17:27:01","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T22:27:01","slug":"iron-fortified-lumber-could-be-a-greener-alternative-to-steel-beams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/iron-fortified-lumber-could-be-a-greener-alternative-to-steel-beams","title":{"rendered":"Iron-fortified lumber could be a greener alternative to steel beams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/iron-fortified-lumber-could-be-a-greener-alternative-to-steel-beams.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Although lumber <i>does<\/i> show promise as a <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/newatlas.com\/architecture\/mga-timber-tower-milwaukee\/\" data-cms-ai=\"0\">renewable alternative<\/a> to structural materials such as steel and concrete, it still tends to be a bit weaker than those substances. Scientists have now set about addressing that shortcoming, by strengthening wood with added iron.<\/p>\n<p>Led by Asst. Prof. Vivian Merk, a team of researchers at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) started out with cubes of untreated red oak hardwood. Red oak \u2013 along with hardwoods like maple, cherry and walnut \u2013 is an example of what\u2019s known as ring-porous wood. In a nutshell, this means that it utilizes large ring-shaped internal vessels to draw water up from the tree\u2019s roots to its leaves.<\/p>\n<p>The scientists proceeded to mix ferric nitrate with potassium hydroxide, creating a hard iron oxide mineral called nanocrystalline ferrihydrite, which occurs naturally in soil and water. Utilizing a vacuum impregnation process, nanoparticles of that ferrihydrite were drawn into the wood and deposited inside of its individual cell walls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although lumber does show promise as a renewable alternative to structural materials such as steel and concrete, it still tends to be a bit weaker than those substances. Scientists have now set about addressing that shortcoming, by strengthening wood with added iron. Led by Asst. Prof. Vivian Merk, a team of researchers at Florida Atlantic [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":718,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1635,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-materials","category-nanotechnology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212908","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\/718"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212908\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}