For the last nine years, material scientist and co-founder of InventWood Liangbing Hu has been developing a reengineered “superwood” he believes could replace steel. Now, after nearly a decade of perfecting the formula, his reinvention of lumber is finally available as a commercial product.
What Is Superwood?
“Natural wood is a low-cost and abundant material and has been used for millennia as a structural material for building and furniture construction,” reads a 2018 study from the journal Nature. “However, the mechanical performance of natural wood (its strength and toughness) is unsatisfactory for many advanced engineering structures and applications.”
Superwood attempts to address that problem by chemically treating wood to enhance its cellulose — first boiling it in a mixture of water and chemicals, then compressing it so that it collapses at a cellular level. This process significantly increases the density of the wood, in turn enhancing its strength.
“In theory, we can use any kind of wooden material,” InventWood CEO Alex Lau told CNN. “In practice, we’ve tested with 19 different kinds of species of wood as well as bamboo, and it’s worked on all of them.”
According to InventWood, Superwood is up to 20 times stronger than normal wood. Wood is naturally porous, but as it’s compressed and chemically treated, the surface collapses and toughens. InventWood claims that this process makes Superwood up to 10 times more resistant to dents.
What Is Superwood Meant For?
Concrete is the most commonly used construction material in the world. Superwood is not meant to change that — at least, not at first. Instead, InventWood wants its flagship product to start relatively small. Initially, Superwood will be used mainly in external construction applications like decking and cladding. Eventually, it will expand into interior applications like wall paneling and flooring.
Home construction is not the only industry Superwood hopes to disrupt. InventWood also plans to create products specifically for furniture building. “People always complain that furniture breaks down over time, and that’s often because it sags or breaks down at the joints, which are currently made of metal because wood isn’t strong enough,” Lau told CNN. Screws, nails, and other fasteners made from Superwood could address that problem, at least in theory.
For now, the company is focused on scaling up its manufacturing capabilities at its plant in Maryland. One day, Lau hopes that Superwood could be used to construct entire buildings. Back in 2018 when Superwood was first unveiled, its inventor revealed even bigger dreams:
“This kind of wood could be used in cars, airplanes, buildings – any application where steel is used,” Hu said. Only time will tell whether these sky-high visions will become reality.
Sources:
- CNN, “Scientists create ‘Superwood’ that’s stronger than steel” 2025
- Our World in Data, “Global cement production has plateaued over the last decade” 2025
- University of Maryland, “Super Wood Could Replace Steel” 2018
- Nature, “Processing bulk natural wood into a high-performance structural material” 2018
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