Found online - "There is even a U.S. patent whereby wood can be treated with a silicate solution rendering the characteristics of petrified wood. US Patent for Petrified Wood Patent No. 4,612,050: “A mineralized sodium silicate solution for the application to wood has a composition causing it to penetrate the wood and jell within the wood so as to give the wood the non-burning characteristics of petrified wood.” [2]. Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found a method to create petrified wood in just a few days. [3]"
"Shin's petrified wood journey began in a less dramatic fashion, a few minutes away at Lowe's, Shin's group reports in the current issue of the journal Advanced Materials, in the do-it-yourselfer chain's lumberyard,. There they picked up their raw material: pine and poplar boards. Back at PNNL, they gave a 1 centimeter cube of wood a two-day acid bath, soaked it in a silica solution for two more (for best results, repeat this step up to three times), air-dried it, popped it into an argon-filled furnace gradually cranked up to 1,400 degrees centigrade to cook for two hours, then let cool in argon to room temperature."
At first glance this product looks similar to "sawdust crete" like Charmaine used to use. But then they start talking about "mineralized" wood which translates to "petrified" wood. The process seems to be a bit beyond what the average DIYer could do at home. The blocks are intended as forms for pouring concrete, and look like they would work well. They don't claim that they are structural anywhere that I found.
A few years ago someone on this list was making similarly shaped blocks from compressed papercrete. I don't remember seeing much about them after the initial post.
spaceman All opinions expressed or implied are subject to change without notice upon receipt of new information. http://Starship-Enterprises.Net blog at http://Starship-Enterprises.Net/wordpress/
On 7/18/2011 9:25 AM, Greg House wrote:
I saw a video at FineHomebuilding.com about this product and though this group might find it interesting. It's an ICF block that's made with wood fibers and cement, similar to papercrete, but from the appearance of it, the wood isn't broken down completely to the fiber. They list several of the advantages of the material, and they're a lot of the same things we say about PC.
Greg
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