Tucked in Frederick, Maryland, is a rapidly growing startup that turns timber into Superwood, an engineered wood product said to outperform lumber and rival steel.
InventWood creates the building material by taking real wood and reengineering it at the molecular level to maximize its performance as a building material.
Through a patented process, the company compresses the wood to increase its density up to three to four times its original state, bringing its
cellulose fibers so close they form new chemical bonds.
“This creates a super-material that is up to 50% stronger than steel, in certain applications, yet up to 80% lighter,” said InventWood spokesperson Christina Ra.
Superwood’s durability is a result of modifying the lignin and selectively removing hemicellulose.
“Hemicellulose is the component in natural wood that absorbs moisture and breaks down first, contributing to dimensional instability and decay,” Ra said. “By removing it, we eliminate a major source of vulnerability.”
That dense structure makes the material highly resistant to rot, moisture, termites and everyday wear and tear. With a tensile strength that can
exceed 700 megapascals, InventWood sees Superwood as a great candidate for structures typically dominated by metals.
The technology was born out of research by InventWood co-founder and professor Liangbing Hu of the University of Maryland. Hu had been researching materials like carbon nanotubes and graphene, which are difficult to synthesize at a large scale.
“He decided to look to nature for a starting material,” Ra said, “and recognized that cellulose nanocrystals, found abundantly in plants, are
actually stronger than typical carbon fiber.”
Ra said that since natural wood only achieves about 1% of the potential strength of its cellulose nanocrystals because of its porous structure,
Hu set out to unlock its potential and found a breakthrough process to fundamentally restructure wood by modifying the lignin and densifying
the structure.
Hu’s research was published in the science journal Nature in 2018.
Construction of InventWood’s 90,000-square-foot manufacturing facility began in 2023, and the company had its commercial launch in 2025. The facility is capable of producing more than 1 million square feet of Superwood annually and fully allocated production capacity for 2025.
InventWood is now in the process of designing an expansion with a new facility able to produce more than 20 times the volume of its current one.
InventWood has seen particularly strong interest from regions like California that are regularly affected by wildfires. Superwood can achieve a Class A fire rating, making it desirable for construction in such areas.
The company will be pursuing listing in the California State Fire Marshal’s Building Materials Listing Program for wildland-urban interface areas
later this year.
“This certification is specifically for products used in fire hazard severity zones where urban development meets wildland areas,” Ra said.
The Superwood has been successfully tested with 19 species of wood, including bamboo.
“From a lumber perspective, this flexibility allows us to utilize fast-growing, underutilized and even waste wood species,” Ra said. “We can process parts of a tree that are typically uneconomic, as well as wood from forest management activities aimed at fire prevention and
ecosystem health.”
It’s as much about a strong building material as it is about resource management.
“By creating a high-value product from these materials, we provide an additional revenue stream for forest managers and support responsible
forest stewardship,” Ra said.
Homeowners and businesses can reserve Superwood online at inventwood.com.
Superwood’s initial applications include exterior siding, decking and fencing. The product comes unfinished or with a refined finish for high-end
applications.
It accepts most standard wood finishes, including paints, stains and clear coats.
Color swatches of Superwood.
Provided by InventWood
