Hybrid wood materials with magnetic anisotropy dictated by the hierarchical cell structure

Anisotropic and hierarchical structures are bound in nature and highly desired in engineered materials, due to their outstanding functions and performance. Mimicking such natural features with synthetic materials and methods has been a highly active area of research in the last decades. Unlike these methods, we use the native biomaterial wood, with its intrinsic anisotropy and hierarchy as a directional scaffold for the incorporation of magnetic nanoparticles inside the wood material. Nanocrystalline iron oxide particles were synthesized in situ via coprecipitation of ferric and ferrous ions within the interconnected pore network of bulk wood. Imaging with low-vacuum and cryogenic electron microscopy as well as spectral Raman mapping revealed layered nanosize particles firmly attached to the inner surface of the wood cell walls. The mineralogy of iron oxide was identified by XRD powder diffraction and Raman spectroscopy as a mixture of the spinel phases magnetite and maghemite. The intrinsic structural architecture of native wood entails a three-dimensional assembly of the colloidal iron oxide which results in direction-dependent magnetic features of the wood-mineral hybrid material. This superinduced magnetic anisotropy, as quantified by direction-dependent magnetic hysteresis loops and low-field susceptibility tensors, allows for directional lift, drag, alignment, (re)orientation, and actuation, and opens up novel applications of the natural resource wood.