Transparent Wood Courtesy of Liangbing Hu, University of Maryland College Park
Photo Courtesy of Ken Aschliman

Transparent wood still has all the cell structures that comprised the original piece of wood. The process starts with bleaching all the lignin (an organic polymer that gives wood cells their rigidity) from the wood, thus removing the color. The wood is soaked in epoxy, which adds strength and makes it clearer. This wood is cut against the grain, so that the structures of the tree that drew water and nutrients up from the roots lie along the shortest dimension of the window. The transparent wood uses these natural channels to guide the sunlight through the wood. While transparent wood lets through a little bit less light than glass, it lets in a lot less heat and provides a little more privacy because it is not completely transparent.