Development of colorless wood via two-step delignification involving alcoholysis and bleaching with maintaining natural hierarchical structure

Lignin-free wood has been successfully developed via a two-step chemical treatment while maintaining its inherent hierarchical structure. The first step was alcoholysis which was conducted using ethylene glycol, and whose condition was optimized by monitoring the removal of lignin using infrared spectroscopy. The second step was bleaching wherein the delignification proceeded from the surface to the core of the wood block, and finally resulted in complete decolorization. Although the wood block was free from lignin and hemicellulose as approximately confirmed by the chemical composition analysis, the 3-dimensional colorless wood block was almost unaltered, even after freeze-drying. Then, multidirectional observation was performed to investigate whether the natural hierarchical structure from anatomical- to nano-level was maintained. Optical microscopy, X-ray microcomputed tomography, X-ray diffractometry, and transmission electron microscopy demonstrated that all the stages of hierarchical structure were maintained. The lignin-free wood block has great potential for novel materials that are supported by a 3-dimensional wooden architecture. The derived lignin-free wood is also a suitable specimen that can be used to understand the formation and functionality of the anatomical structure and lignified cell wall.