Sustainability and circularity of transparent wood: the role of the AI-TranspWood project in highlighting the potential of this new material

Transparent Wood (TW) is an intriguing, sustainable, and multifaceted material that can be obtained from wood by (i) lignin removal, (ii) infiltration of the delignified material with suitable resins, and (iii) a final polymerization/curing step. Among its main characteristics, TW usually exhibits high optical transmittance, high impact resistance, and tunable functional properties, based on the presence of specific additives in the resin formulation. The present work aims to elucidate the research activities that are being carried out within the Horizon AI-TranspWood project, which exploits Artificial Intelligence for modeling the physico-chemical and mechanical properties of TW at different scales (nano, micro, and meso), using the Safe and Sustainable by Design approach.