Steak Knife Made From Hardened Wood Is Three Times Sharper Than Steel (newatlas.com) 91
Scientists have used a new form of hardened wood to create a steak knife that is nearly three times sharper than a stainless steel dinner table knife. It can even be washed in the dishwasher! New Atlas reports: This hardy new form of wood is the handiwork of scientists at the University of Maryland, who set out to supercharge the material's natural strength, which lies in the cellulose packed inside. Cellulose is the primary component of wood, accounting for 40 to 50 percent of the material, and itself has a higher strength-to-density ratio than many engineered materials, including ceramics, metals and polymers. But the remainder of wood, made up of the binding materials hemicellulose and lignin, dilutes its overall strength and limits its applications. The authors of the study set out remove these weaker parts of the wood while preserving the cellulose structures.
"It's a two-step process," says senior author Teng Li. "In the first step, we partially delignify wood. Typically, wood is very rigid, but after removal of the lignin, it becomes soft, flexible, and somewhat squishy. In the second step, we do a hot press by applying pressure and heat to the chemically processed wood to densify and remove the water." The hardened wood was then carved into a knife and coated in mineral oil, which counters the natural tendency of cellulose to absorb water, extending the lifespan of the material, preserving the blade's sharpness and making it dishwasher safe. According to the team, the hard wood knife is almost three times sharper than a stainless steel dinner table knife and is 23 times times harder than natural wood. It was used to cut through a medium-well done steak with ease. The team was also able to produce nails using the new hard wood. Not only were they rust-resistant but they were just as sharp as regular steel nails.
The research was published in the journal Matter.
"It's a two-step process," says senior author Teng Li. "In the first step, we partially delignify wood. Typically, wood is very rigid, but after removal of the lignin, it becomes soft, flexible, and somewhat squishy. In the second step, we do a hot press by applying pressure and heat to the chemically processed wood to densify and remove the water." The hardened wood was then carved into a knife and coated in mineral oil, which counters the natural tendency of cellulose to absorb water, extending the lifespan of the material, preserving the blade's sharpness and making it dishwasher safe. According to the team, the hard wood knife is almost three times sharper than a stainless steel dinner table knife and is 23 times times harder than natural wood. It was used to cut through a medium-well done steak with ease. The team was also able to produce nails using the new hard wood. Not only were they rust-resistant but they were just as sharp as regular steel nails.
The research was published in the journal Matter.
No endurance test data? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't see any endurance test data. How long will it stay sharper?
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It was used to cut through a medium-well done steak with ease.
Sadly they didn't say how it fared on the second medium-will done steak.
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I notice they focus on sharper - not harder, nor durable.
Also rust-resistant nails are nice, but they're begging the real question. The real question is - how much rot resistance is there, if any, as compared to regular wood? I mean, I've got a deck made of boards that are all completely rust-resistant already - but rust really isn't the problem.
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This is a material that can be easily made at home. I think it's time for some citizen science. I look forward to you posting your results.
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I'm not sure I want to keep (or be handling) the chemicals and equipment necessary for lignin removal at my house.
Owning a big press might be fun, though.
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I imagine the nails will resist rotting better than the actual wood around them, so it's probably not really an issue.
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I imagine the nails will resist rotting better than the actual wood around them, so it's probably not really an issue.
As a rule by the time wood has rotted the nails are also degrading due to rust. Although they are generally still quite strong, they also will have lost some of their diameter, so they don't do their original job anyway.
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Also rust-resistant nails are nice, but they're begging the real question. The real question is - how much rot resistance is there, if any, as compared to regular wood?
You're absolutely right that the sharpness of nails is not the most important thing. Most nails aren't even particularly sharp to begin with. It's not just rust/rot resistance though. I would think shear strength is just as important or even more so. How that holds up over time is also very important though.
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Sure, but this process significantly alters the wood to the point where it's really a completely new material. So does that still hold true. Does it potentially have problems with brittleness, etc. What about expansion and contraction in response to temperature changes, or moisture? There seem to be a lot of unknowns that are not covered by just discussing how sharp they are relative to steel nails. If they turn out to be a superior product, then I would say maybe we should switch to using them. What we rea
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The main reason for using nails rather than those old woodworking techniques does seem to mostly be convenience. It definitely seems easier to just blast in nails with a nail gun. Of course, that also seems to split and chew up the wood like crazy, but not enough to really compromise the final structure. It seems like modern tools should also make it easier to use those old joining techniques as well though. My father just had his barn rebuilt using big, heavy posts and beams and they didn't use nails at al
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"I don't see any endurance test data. How long will it stay sharper?"
Long enough to slaughter a few flight attendants before crashing the plane I guess.
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Deceptive title. The article actually reads:
A table knife is not designed for sharpness, nor is it ever even sharpened. It is intentionally dull. In fact, it is really a miniature saw that tears through food. The article might as well have stated, "Oranges are rounder than apples".
Wood, smood - try knives from other materials. (Score:1)
This guy makes knives not only from wood, but also chocolate, eggs, cucumbers, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/channe... [youtube.com]
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Airport Security (Score:3)
Well, guess airport security just got more "interesting".
Re:Airport Security (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think that will be a big problem. The 'nude scanners' look for density differences. And either display the shapes to an operator or pattern match against known weapons and contraband.
I was going through an airport not long ago and I left a plastic comb in my pocket. They saw it and knew what it was without a problem.
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How do you know they didn't just think you had a slim jimmy?
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Many airports just have the standard metal detectors, or a mixture of nudie scanners and metal detectors. So for them it could be a problem if this ever becomes common.
I'd like to think we could just drop the security theatre now, but I don't see it happening any time soon.
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Why would you ever think that? We're adding medical security theater on top of everything else along with intentional economic sabotage to create artificial shortages and hardship for the non-elite. It's straight out of 1984.
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It's not like there haven't been plastic materials that could be used to make stabbing implements that could make it through those scanners since before those scanners existed. Also, not as if people have not regularly demonstrated that they can take knives and guns through airport security. How many reported incidents have there been where people accidentally forgot to check guns and took them on flights? How many unreported incidents? I don't think this really changes anything with regards to airport secu
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Well, guess airport security just got more "interesting".
Not really. Non-metallic knives already exist. Even if you discount ceramic knives (quite common), bamboo knives exist (and have been used since prehistoric times) as do hard plastic knives. In terms of what would constitute a lethal weapon on an airplane hard plastic is more than up to the job of being an effective weapon [osograndeknives.com].
Dimensional stability (Score:5, Interesting)
Metals, glasses, and ceramics tend to be the gold standard of dimensionally stable materials.
Wood creeps and warps under load even in the absence of humidity.
This idea is neat...perhaps it can replace plastics in some applications like stuff near an MRI machine...but it will join a crowded field of not quite dimensionally stable alternatives to metals and ceramics. I also imagine it's denser and therefore heavier than some of them.
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You can use most stainless steel next to an MRI bore with no trouble whatsoever. so take that steak knife in there with you if it makes you feel safer.
Just watch out for 1030 and 1035.
Re:Dimensional stability (Score:5, Informative)
There used to be a certain type of tree here in Paraguay, that you couldn't fell with an axe. The wood is so hard, it would destroy the axe.
Most, if not all of those trees were felled though. By unusual means. And most of it you can find in church towers.
After 150 years of being used in those towers, measurements were taken and it turns out that this wood in those towers is now about as hard as steel.
That is also a problem of wood. Its molecular cohesion reduces over time, making it weaker. Compared with steel, most types of wood deteriorate a lot quicker than steel does.
However, if these methods of hardening wood can be done rather cheaply and preferably environment friendly, than it could be a replacement for the excessive use of plastics.
While bamboo is technically a grass, there is some overlap with wood. Would the same methods work to harden bamboo? If so, bamboo is relatively easy to grow, it grows fast and if it could be used as cutlery for a while, before it ends up in a garbage pile, it would help.
My rationale is that many small steps of making things more environment friendly will provide more time to come up with (and test) bigger ones, so the offspring of our children won't suffer as badly as the current projections want us to believe.
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bamboo is relatively easy to grow, it grows fast and if it could be used as cutlery for a while
Bamboo is already used in cooking and eating utensils.
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Aluminum and Steel production are significant carbon producers. (iron & steel production contributes 11% of the human-produced CO2, aluminum about 2%)
But wood captures and sequesters carbon.
So it's a win-win.
If we don't switch to wooden knives, we might have to instead give up eating steaks altogether.
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Aluminum and Steel production are significant carbon producers
Good thing then that stainless steel cutlery lasts practically forever. And if you manage to ruin some of it, say by cutting it up with an angle grinder - they are 100% recyclable.
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Metals, glasses, and ceramics tend to be the gold standard
Then they aren't gold standard...
They're them standard.
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We should look at alternative ways to built a lot of things using wood. In Japan many buildings were made of wood (no nails, just wood frames) and stood the test of time. Meanwhile the UK still uses bricks, which are an environmental disaster.
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This was more a matter of not having fire regulations or fire departments at the time ("In sixteen hundred and sixty six London burned like rotten sticks".)
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California proves that you can have fire regulations and fire departments and still have firestorms.
We still have trees here so that exacerbates that particular problem, but that's not the only way to set a city ablaze.
Humans should stop building with flammable materials, it's just dumb.
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California's problem is defective-by-design water and land policy combined with corrupt and incompetent idiotic ideas of forestry. The same thing happened in Australia when they stopped allowing farmers to manage their own land, suddenly they started having regular catastrophic fires because of incompetent forestry practices allowing the buildup of massive fuel loads.
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California's problem is defective-by-design water and land policy combined with corrupt and incompetent idiotic ideas of forestry.
Yeah, the same thing is happening all over the USA, and frankly it's happening in many places around the world.
Also frankly this is how nature naturally (wink) restores lands which have been devastated by whatever, whether it's humans or what. Repeated burns increase soil carbon.
Some of the first laws on the books in California prohibited natives from setting fires to control undergrowth and that's part of how we got where we are now, but also by logging everything. And that's been done all over the country
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The same thing happened in Australia when they stopped allowing farmers to manage their own land, suddenly they started having regular catastrophic fires because of incompetent forestry practices allowing the buildup of massive fuel loads.
Well, one of the bigger Australian fires of 2020 was because some idiots from the army landed a helicopter unsafe;y, which caused a fire, then they took off again and proceeded to not report the blaze because they knew they'd get in trouble: https://www.abc.net.au/news/20... [abc.net.au]
As for "allowing farmers to manage their own land," well, we tried that for 200 years, and that's part of the reason we have such problems with salinity, erosion, invasive species....
Look, not all regulations get it right, but allowing
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I think the purpose is to replace plastic utensils. A lot of places are getti
Added bonus (Score:5, Funny)
Researchers also found that if vampires attack you while you're eating dinner, these wooden knives were 75 times more effective at defense than conventional steel knives.
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I wonder if you could make a knife out of meat? (Score:2)
Researchers also found that if vampires attack you while you're eating dinner, these wooden knives were 75 times more effective at defense than conventional steel knives.
I wonder if you could make a knife out of meat?
Then, if a vegetable vampire starts sapsucking your floral arrangement, you could drive a steak through its heartwood.
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Well done, sir.
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Oh well, either the pun wasn't as funny as I thought it was, or it was too subtle. ... get it? heh he.
Well done... for a steak/stake jobe.
but problematic for restaurants . . . (Score:2)
Manager: why aren't there any steak knives at this table? I keep telling you to lay them out every time!
Waiter: [pokes at pile of dust on table] Termites, sir.
Rust resistant? (Score:1)
Rust resistant? I would think it would be completely rust proof. There is no iron in wood, duh.
really? (Score:2)
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saying it's "90% less sharp" than the average kitchen knife doesn't have quite the same ring for a headline.
also, these guys have never heard about what inuit can do with a knife made of frozen dung ...
kidding aside: compressing carbon into useful stuff sounds like a good idea if is recyclable.
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Most people don't appear to sharpen their knives anyway.
just need billy mays to sell it! (Score:2)
just need billy mays to sell it!
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Unfortunately, they'll have to settle for his zombie...
Sharper than a dinner knife? (Score:2)
Not to say that this isn't a great material, just seems like damning with faint praise.
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What the fuck does that even mean? How does one measure "sharpness". Or, I'm guessing, this is just another case of some flunky reporter or PR flack confabulating data into some easily digestible phrase.
How about using an industrial edge tester https://www.sharpeningsupplies... [sharpeningsupplies.com]
Re: Three times sharper? (Score:1)
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What the fuck does that even mean? How does one measure "sharpness".
Instead of being angry about an area you know nothing about, why not learn about it instead?
You know you can type something like "measuring blade sharpness" into yahoo or ask jeeves and it's been years since they gave you nothing but porn.
Um... (Score:3)
The team was also able to produce nails using the new hard wood. Not only were they rust-resistant but they were just as sharp as regular steel nails.
Rust resistant? Like as in cedar rust? Im wondering if the original authors wrote that because if so they need to iron out how bad that sounds.
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The original article uses uses the wording An HW [hardened wood] nail can be as functional as a steel nail with comparable performance but is immune from rusting, a key failure mechanism of steel nails.
How much does it cost? (Score:2)
What's the use if it's not close to the price of steel?
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The paper authors think is will be cheaper,as their summary ends with the following sentence:
These encouraging applications suggest the promise of HW [hardened wood] as a renewable and low-cost alternative for conventional hard materials with the potential to replace plastic table utensils and steel nails.
How did they get approval for this?! (Score:5, Funny)
They just throw this out there. Admitting to it. Why aren't they in jail? medium-well?!!
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Indeed. The only proper way to cook a steak is well done. Burnt on the outside.
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How do you get it blue rare?
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Nanocrystaline Cellolose (Score:2)
One from the vaults (Score:1)
"Huh huh, huh huh huh, 'hardened wood', huh huh huh"
"Hm hm heh, yeah, heh heh hm"
That's not steak. (Score:3)
I mean lets be real; If you need a knife like that to cut your steak, you're not eating steak. You're eating some charred slab that came second to steel-belted shoe leather, and that's a shop tool, not a utensil.
Maybe learn to cook your meat right, and you wouldn't need something just short of diamond to cut it with? Seriously, step out of the lab and in front of the grill more often. Burn Dads steak that bad, and you won't even get a "Damn."..he'll just shake his head, and walk away. Like you dented his fender.
Pricing ? (Score:1)
Pop! (Score:2)
Because I never grew up, my immediate thought was, can this be used for skateboards?
"Hardened wood" = better than rhino horn (Score:2, Funny)
Mineral oil? (Score:2)
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Food safe mineral oil is the preferred thing to use for wooden cooking implements like cutting boards, bowls, spoons, etc. Unlike cooking oil, mineral oil does not become rancid.
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The mineral oil is absorbed in the wood. The amount of mineral oil that might migrate into the food is negligible.
Do you think you need the cooking oil calories or something? You can just add oil to your food if that is the case and oil from knives wouldn't be effective anyway (that negligible quantity thing). Mineral oil is perfectly safe for human consumption. Some people use it as a laxative in large amounts (tablespoon or more).
Mineral oil is used on cutting boards and "mineral oil in food" has never be
Consider Bamboo (Score:3)
Bamboo has superior and versatile physical properties that is invoked to account for the virtual absence of complex prehistoric stone tool technologies in eastern and southeastern Asia. Recent research [sciencedaily.com] has demonstrated that complex bamboo tools can be made using simple stone tools.
Bamboo knives can't compete with all of the qualities of steel knives, but are quite effective for most cutting and shaping of plant and animal materials, simple stone tools which are harder fill in for the rest.
Bamboo is still used as an urban construction material in Asia.
One interesting application of bamboo is in cables which perform about as well as steel, strength to weight wise. China has had deep drilling technology for around 2000 years using bamboo cables to lift and drop impact drills that was not available in the west until the 19th century made steel cables practical.
Matter (Score:2)
The research was published in the journal Matter [doi.org] which could hardly have a broader range of possible content. Is there a journal called Energy?
There's a guy on youtube (Score:2)
Who makes knives out of a large variety of things and then sharpens them meticulously. It's not hard to get a super sharp knife made out of basically anything to cut through a steak. The trick is getting it to cut through a steak twice.
Sharpness is irrelevant in knives, material hardness is the important criteria. Also too hard is just as bad as not hard enough, don't want any metal chips in your food on account of hitting a bone.
demOnstratiOn Of libidO (Score:2)
thank u science 4 a sOlutiOn 2 the impending depOpulatiOn dilemma - men can shO their sex drive while having red meat
Ah, round and round we go. (Score:2)
First, petrified wood is basically stone. So it's no surprise that wood (or any cellulose product) can be as strong as any stone-age axe.
Second, you'll find that petrified wood doesn't decompose -- you know, like stone. So this concept of replacing plastic with solidified wood doesn't address waste at all.
Third, killing trees and deforestation in general is the reason that we moved to plastic in the first place.
Fourth, at least in theory plastic can be recycled into more plastic. Can these wooden utensil