In the brave new world of electric and driverless vehicles, tech rules supreme - so it may seem incongruent that wood may soon become an automobile component.
Well, not exactly. Even here, technology is at the forefront. A material made from wood pulp, called cellulose nanofibres (CNF), could become a viable alternative to steel, proponents say stronger than, in the effort to reduce automobile weight. Shedding kilograms has become critical as car manufacturers move to bringing electric vehicles into the mainstream - lighter means less battery power needed to propel them.
CNF is a plastic-like material composed of nano-sized (three gold atoms lined up are about one nanometre) cellulose fibrils (typical fibril widths are five to 20 nanometres). Under the so-called "Kyoto Process" fibrils are isolated from any cellulose-containing source - usually wood pulp - through various high-pressure, high-temperature and high-velocity methods and microfluidisation. The resulting nanoemulsions - microscopic emulsions composed of liquids that would otherwise not combine to form the required homogeneous mixture - are then combined with resin to create CNF.
Hiroyuki Yano, who heads the research conducted at the Kyoto University Research Institute of Sustainable Humanosphere's Laboratory of Active Bio-Based Materials, tells The National CNF could be used in outer panels such as doors, bumpers and rear doors.
The major Japanese car parts suppliers Denso, Toyota's biggest supplier, and DaikyoNishikawa are working with products incorporating CNF. Denso says the company's aim is not simply weight reduction. "We are studying whether it can be applied to automotive parts as a renewable, environmentally friendly high performance material."
The car parts industry is big business. The researcher V12 Data forecasts the global market value to hit US$722.8 billion by 2020 and Global Industry Analysts predicts it will reach US$1 trillion by 2022. Global adds that Japan, where safety tops priority charts, presents "tremendous opportunities for growth".
In the fiscal year ending March 31, 2017, Denso's consolidated annual revenue totalled ¥4.52tn (Dh148.39bn), up from slightly over ¥4tn in 2014. Consolidated operating profit totalled ¥330.6bn, a 4.7 per cent increase from the previous year. "For the new fiscal year, revenue will increase due to the increase of car production and sales expansion, despite the increase of car production and sales expansion , the operating profit will decrease due to impact of the other income/expenses," said Koji Arima, the president and chief executive.
For 2018, Denso forecasts revenue to pick up by 1.8 per cent.
DaikyoNishikawa, meanwhile, for the quarter ended June 30, 2017, on consolidated basis, saw net sales of ¥41.19bn against ¥36.16bn a year earlier. Operating income was ¥4.09bn against ¥3.05bn in the same period of 2016.
Used in a variety of applications, CNF can be found in paper and cardboard manufacturing, as a composite for reinforcing plastics, as a low-calorie replacement for carbohydrate additives used as thickeners, flavour carriers and suspension stabilisers, as well as having medical, pharmaceutical and cosmetic applications.
The Kyoto Process aims to reduce the cost of producing cellulose nanofibres to the point where they can be used to make parts for cars and planes. Kyoto University plans to complete a prototype car made using cellulose nanofibre parts by 2020, according to electronicsweekly.com.
However, there is still a way to go before cellulose nanofibres are a viable commercial proposition. The cost of mass producing a kilogram of cellulose nanofibre is about US$9, although the base nanocellulose is much cheaper, while the cost of 1kg of steel or aluminium is about $2.
Veronic Landry, a professor at Laval University's department of wood and forestry sciences and a member of the Quebec City, Canada university's Faculty of Forestry, Geography and Geomatics' Renewable Materials Research Centre, tells The National the use of CNF in the automobile sector makes sense.
CNF and other nanometric materials made from wood have already shown their potential and good mechanical properties, he points out. These include improved elasticity and tensile strength when added to thermoplastic materials. "Moreover, their limited toxicity compared to certain other nanoparticles makes them a very interesting material," Mr Landry says.
Anthony Vicari, an analyst at Boston, USA technology research and advisory firm Lux Research, is more sceptical. The cost of batteries has been falling rapidly in recent years and should continue to do so, Mr Vicari says, meaning the need for weight reduction will become less critical.
Over the past decade, premium electric vehicle battery-pack prices have fallen from about $1,000 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to less than $200/kWh, with a plausible path to sub-$100/kWh packs by around 2030.
"At that price, and assuming reasonable battery pack size [sufficient to achieve a 350km range], it is difficult even to justify the added expenses (such as retooling, parts redesign and developing and deploying new repair technologies) of switching from steel to aluminum, let alone switching to any kind of composite," Mr Vicari says.
Assuming nanocellulose composite technology progresses at the pace that the developers claim it will (optimistic but possible), then automotive adoption would be technically feasible in the early 2030s. By that time, the battery technology landscape will have changed so that there is much less cost benefit from cutting weight from a typical electric passenger vehicle, Mr Vicari says.
One exception might be in large electric trucks for haulage, where much larger battery packs will be needed, justifying more the need to reduce the kilograms by a large factor. "Another will be luxury vehicles, where lightweighting can provide performance benefits other than fuel efficiency or reduced battery pack size," Mr Vicari adds.
However, the DaikyoNishikawa public relations and corporate social responsibility official Yukihiko Ishino says CNF development is still in its early stage and that it will become increasingly financially viable. "We think there is still room for future cost reduction," he says.
Echoing Mr Ishino, Mr Yano points out nanocellulose's low cost, at ¥40 (Dh1.31) to ¥50 per kilo.
"So in the future, it may be cheaper than aluminium or steel," he says.
"Also," he points out, "nanocellulose is a renewable resource."
