Gem-gum to natural material gap
Gemstone like compounds and mechanical metamaterials thereof are very different to natural materials.
Will there be materials that are with there inner makeup somewhere in-between?
Well, this is not the target product range of gem-gum factories
bitgiven specialised systems will be developed (akin to the
specialised system for synthesis of food) then such materials might well become a reality.
One would probably make these materials out of
- biodegradability reasons – throw the technobiowood it to the rest of the wood and treat it the same
- psychological reasons – knowledge that technobiowood is very much like real wood
What should be avoided is integrating non-decomposable particulates
or fragile fibrous structures into a decomposable matrix.
That would give an environmental nightmare. See: Spill prevention and splinter prevention
Technobiowood
There are only a finite number of species of trees on this planet but in the universe of possibilities
there should be a sheer endless amount of possible types of woods.
Also some rare types of wood we really do not want to cut down (like e.g. mahagoni).
The idea:
Synthesizing artificial cellulose lignin structures.
Similar things as in synthesis of food hold.
The structures are stiffer though and not liquid posing challenges.
One can go both direction bridging the gap between the materials:
- more gem-gum like – Integrating slightly water dissolvable gemstome like compoungs like periclase
- more natural like – integrating de-novo proteins from earlier technology levels
Other crossover materials
- faking real stones
- nano-woven polymers
- cryogenically mechanosynthesized metallic pseudo alloys – no clue why
