瑞典科學家發明透明木材 性能超越普通玻璃

Glass windows may soon be a thing of the past.

玻璃材質的窗戶可能很快會成爲過去式。

Researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm have developed a transparent wood material that could change the way we construct buildings and solar panels.

位於斯德哥爾摩的瑞典皇家理工學院的研究人員發明了一種透明的木材，這種木材可能改變我們搭建房屋和太陽能電池板的方法。

The new material is suitable for mass production, the researchers say, and is a low-cost renewable resource.

研究人員稱，這種新材料適合批量生產，還是一種低成本的可再生資源。

If used in the construction of homes and buildings, a transparent wood material has potential to improve indoor lighting, allowing natural light in through the walls. This could save on the costs of artificial lighting, and may even have use in solar cell windows.

如果用透明木材建造住宅和大樓，自然光線有可能穿透牆壁，增加室內亮度。這不僅可以節約人工照明的成本，甚至可以用在太陽能窗戶上。

While this is not the first example of optically transparent wood, previous developments have focused on the study of wood anatomy on a microscopic level. Researchers say this new material has large scale applications.

雖然這不是光學透明的木材的第一個例子，但是以前的發展都集中在微觀層面上的木材解剖研究。 研究人員表示，這種新型材料可以大規模使用。

Panels of transparent wood could be used for windows or semi-transparent facades, to let light in while still maintaining privacy. And, it is also can be used for solar cells, as it traps light, thus boosting efficiency of the cells.

這種新型透明木材可以作爲窗戶或者半透明的房體材料，因爲它既能夠接受陽光照射，又能維護個人隱私。它也能用作太陽能電池板，當捕捉光線的時候，可以提高電池板的效率和性能。

'Transparent wood is a good material for solar cells, since it's a low-cost, readily available and renewable resource,' says Lars Berglund, a professor at Wallenberg Wood Science Center at KTH.

瑞典皇家理工學院瓦倫堡木材科學中心的教授拉茲·貝格隆德表示：“由於這種透明木材成本低、易獲得且可重複利用，因此是很好的太陽能電池材料。”