Transistor Made of Wood(pnas.org) |
Transistor Made of Wood(pnas.org) |
"The CW is prepared using a two-step strategy of wood delignification followed by wood amalgamation with a mixed electron-ion conducting polymer, poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)–polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS)."
Probably the most useful idea in this direction is oriented-strand board from bagasse, the long strands left after sugar is remove from sugar cane. Layers oriented in different directions are glued together, like plywood, to make something like particleboard, but with better tensile strength. It's a low-end composite material.
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stronger-than-ste...
I don't know if I agree with it being "incredibly dishonest" - I think it's a bit misleading (like most popular science), but it comes from a place of wanting to get clicks/ be more mass-appeal, rather than to actually deceive.
I completely agree that the phrasing of the topic is misleading at best. However, the paper does add to the growing body of work on "organic" electronics. The journey of organic LEDs from concept to product is, to me, an interesting corollary. How much "metal" can you remove from electronics? How many of the elements that make electronics "toxic"? How many of the properties of the underlying organic base can you retain while still having a signal carrying capacity?
As an example;
E-"paper", made from cellulose hosted transistors, that are configured not to "switch" but to change the chemical composition of a "pixel" that changes is light absorption characteristics (and thus its "color" with respect to non-activated pixels.
Clearly a sci-fi "dream" or construction at this point, but understanding how to make cellulose a conductor while retaining the ability to make it into paper is a step toward possible realization of such an idea.
The bottom line for me is that "organic" electronics is one of those black swan type ideas that could really change a lot of things. So I collect papers like this one to track what people with time to research the questions find out. :-)
Definitely a market for those with the audiophool crowd.
For those of you who are not up to speed on your Latin, the Saxon version of this word would be "unwooding".
Bra jobbat, Isak!
I bring it up here because it was a lot like delignification. Printing organs doesn't really work, but what if we took a random liver, removed all of the organic matter except the collagen, and then introduced a small sample of your cells into that collagen. Can we get it to grow into a functioning organ that is completely genetically compatible with you? The answer was 'maybe'.
Or perhaps a little less fanciful, delignification is kind of a bit like organic aerogel. Aerogel is a foam of two substances and we remove one. We are limited in the structures that can be produced. Pore size and variability and such.
Meanwhile we can an inferior carbon aerogel out of wood that has enough surface to volume ratio to work as a capacitor. And if we make them out of bamboo, they work even better. Do other plants have a better structure? Can we use nature or nurture to tune that? (eg, consistent water/nutrients, or cyclical?).
The best wine comes from mature grapes suffering through a dry spell.