Wooden Steak Knife Reportedly 3x Sharper Than Steel - ExtremeTech

A team at the University of Maryland discovered that removing key polymers from wood allows them to “supercharge” the strength of the material and make it three times stronger than steel.

First they put the natural wood through a chemical process called delignification, in which the lignin (a polymer that lends rigidity to wood and bark) is removed from the material.

Hardened wood, or HW, which is 23 times harder than the starter material. .

The process of turning natural wood into hardened wood.

Finding ways to turn bulk natural wood into HW allows scientists to create the potential for sustainable and low-cost alternatives to current manufacturing methods.