Transparent wood or bamboo composites as a suitable topic for college-level education, research, and outreach activities in the next decade

Due to societal interest in reducing carbon emissions, transparent wood has attracted increasing attention since 2016. Research on transparent wood composites has become a hot spot in the forest product field. Many challenges and limitations still need to be addressed, involving large-dimensional manufacturing, weak interfacial bonding, difficult three-dimensional tunable, and insufficient optical transmittance. A series of student-led projects is proposed in this editorial to address these barriers. A further goal in transparent wood composite development is to replace single-use plastics (e.g. polyethylene terephthalate food containers). It is proposed to Integrate transparent wood composite research into the education and outreach activities of wood science and forestry university programs.