Wood you wear this helmet? Well, according to Swedish scientists you should certainly consider it, with the wooden design not only providing a similar level of protection to that offered by traditional expanded polystyrene helmets, but also being biodegradeable and made entirely from renewable materials.
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The main thing to explan is that this isn’t just a clog for your head. Beneath the veneer on the outside is a material called Cellufoam, which takes wood cellulose nanofibres and mixes them with water and air to create a material that has similar protective properties to expanded polystyrene.
Completing the helmet are the straps, which are made from extra strong paper, meaning that the helmet can be entirely sourced from Sweden’s ample forests.
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Speaking to phys.org, Lars Wågberg, a professor in Fibre Technology at Stockholm’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology who created the helmet, said that Cellufoam could have uses far beyond bicycle helmets, such as for flame retardant and antibacterial materials.
This is far from the first innovative helmet that we’ve seen in recent months, after the Headkayse helmet which claimed to be the world’s first helmet that could stand up to multiple impacts, and the Bollé One helmet, which could be turned into a mountain bike helmet, road helmet, or aero helmet.
