
Making buildings, cars and planes from materials based on plant fibres - Turukawa
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/06/16/making-buildings-cars-and-planes-from-materials-based-on-plant-fibres
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rmason
Henry Ford created a car body from soybeans over eighty years ago:

[https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-
research/digita...](https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-
research/digital-resources/popular-topics/soy-bean-car/)

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userbinator
_Their aim is to create a “super wood” that is stronger than most metals.
Their approach is to treat blocks of wood with sodium hydroxide and sodium
sulphate in a chemical process similar to that used to remove lignin from
papermaking pulp. The difference is that they remove only enough lignin to
make the wooden blocks easier to compress. They do that by squeezing the
treated wood at around 100°C, which causes most of the pores and tubelike
fibres within the wood to collapse. This increases its density threefold and
its strength elevenfold._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardboard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardboard)

The two biggest disadvantages of plant fibres are [1] they're flammable, and
[2] easily damaged by moisture. Maybe I'm just cynical, but this feels like it
can only advance planned obolescence --- in the same way as the rest of the
"biodegradable" materials trend.

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petre
Not if encased in limestone or concrete. See hempcrete and fibre cement for
instance.

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prawn
Was it William Gibson's The Peripheral which writes about cars where the
exterior is made of cardboard?

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tsomctl
The East German auto manufacturer Trabant made cars with panels made from
cotton, wood pulp, and glue (similar to fiberglass, but with wood fiber). I
don't remember which USSR manufacturer it was, but there was another car with
cow hides for body panels.

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Numberwang
I got a paywall unfortunately. Seems interesting.

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janpot
Here's a bookmarklet to get around that pay"wall"
[https://bookmarkify.it/9810](https://bookmarkify.it/9810)

