Eleftheria Roumeli: Green adhesion for the built environment

Markus Buehler of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and editor of the Impact section of MRS Bulletin, publishing new research, interviews Eleftheria Roumeli of the University of Washington about her group’s work with Ulva seaweed as an adhesive to enable cohesion and strength in hot-pressed wood panels. Upon hot-pressing, powdered Ulva flows in between the wood particles, generating a matrix which provides strong binding. At an Ulva concentration of 40 wt.%, the composites reached an average elastic modulus of 6.1 GPa, and flexural strength of 38.2 MPa (compared to 4.7 GPa and 22.6 MPa, respectively, for pure wood compressed at the same pressing conditions). This work is published in MRS Bulletin https://doi.org/10.1557/s43577-024-00....