• Question: If wood is mostly made of carbon dioxide (i think) , why is it so solid and strong?

    Asked by dtimma to Cathal, Ciara, Emma, Michael, Sive on 14 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Sive Finlay

      Sive Finlay answered on 14 Nov 2013:

      Hi,
      Wood is mostly made carbon bonded together into different molecules. For example, cellulose fibres maintain the tension required for plants to stay upright and lignin is a large organic molecule which is good at resisting compression. Wood is made up of rings of tissue which grow every year. Sugars and water are transported in the centre of the tissue; through the phloem and xylem. As new cells grow in the centre of the wood, old layers of xylem (the water-transporting tissue) become hard due to the lignin which forms in their cell walls. So the outer layers of a tree trunk are hard, lignified cells which are effectively dead but important for maintaining the strength of the overall wood.
      You get carbon dioxide when you burn wood; the carbon in the wood is combined with oxygen from the air to produce the gas.
      Sive

    • Photo: Michael Nolan

      Michael Nolan answered on 17 Nov 2013:

      Hi
      The raw material of trees in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Through photosynthesis this is converted into plant and tree material the different aspects being nicely described by Sive. As part of this process oxygen is released which we breath.
      Photosynthesis is carbon dioxide plus water gives organic molecules plus oxygen.
      M

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