Researchers make hardened wooden knives that slice through steak

THE sharpest knives available are made of either steel or ceramic, both of which are man-made materials that must be forged in furnaces under extreme temperatures. Now, researchers have developed a potentially more sustainable way to make sharp knives: using hardened wood.

The method, presented October 20th in the journal Matter, makes wood 23 times harder, and a knife made from the material is nearly three times sharper than a stainless-steel dinner table knife.

“The knife cuts through a medium-well done steak easily, with similar performance to a dinner table knife,” says Teng Li, the senior author of the study and a materials scientist at the University of Maryland. Afterwards, the hardened wood knife can be washed and reused, making it a promising alternative to steel, ceramic, and disposable plastic knives.

Li and his team also demonstrated that their material can be used to produce wooden nails as sharp