Is it stronger than hemp?

Justin beat me to that question. They really need to apply this research to hemp, if they haven't already.

CNCs have been studied for many years in Canada and are already produced at the ton scale in a pilot plant. Wonderful product. Its affinity with water is not a problem since it is easy to fluorinate or acetylate the surface. This modification, contrarily to what is pretended in this article, does not alter the properties of the CNCs since the reaction is limited to the surface of the product and the vast majority of the CNC remains unaltered (of course, if it is in a very fine powder form, then it's different)

How many trees must be felled to produce enough CNC equivalent to one tree's timber?

Water is easy to protect against but for transparent applications how well does it stand up to UV? ..................................................................................
re; nutcase
You are making several assumptions without evidence. 1. That the harvested trees are good for lumber. 2. That all the wood from trees harvested for lumber is to make boards out of. 3. That harvesting trees is any worse for the environment than harvesting any other crop. 4. That the harvesting of trees and processing then for CNC even comes close to the environmental cost of producing other composite material.

I'd like to see something made from this stuff. Who, when, and where is it being used in a production environment?

At 10% of the cost of carbon fibre, and double the tenstile strength, this new material made from the by product of wood, is the best alternative to building cars, planes, ships, trains, glass, speaker materials, ... well anything to be honest! My only concern is its weight??? ... how does it compare to the alternatives available?
Its this kind of technologies that will help the states to get out of recession, but, not if the technology is solely owned by, and funded by the military establishment. I have never understood why developers get enticed by initial funding, only later to realise they have no control on the very product they passionately wanted to change the world for the better. Still, that is life, death, what ever one wants to resonate with. Peace!

I like it. It's a high performance renewable material and cheap.

I agree with Justin and Gene..... Has anyone thought of Hemp? Seems to me that Hemp would be a more sustainable source of cellulose than trees....and aren't we trying to save the trees?

I'm also interested in knowing why trees were chosen as the source of the cellulose rathar than a faster growing plant. Kudzu comes to mind. I've seen this stuff take over an entire field in a single summer. If it could provide a reasonable quantity of cellulose per pound it could out perform the slower growing trees.