As a new energy-saving building material, optically transparent
wood (TW) shows great application potential due to its performance
in high light transmittance, high haze, and excellent thermal insulation
properties. Herein, a dual functional TW with strong ultraviolet (UV)
protection and good thermal insulation properties has been prepared
by in situ generation of uniformly dispersed TiO2 nanoparticles
in epoxy resin. As is known, TiO2 is generally a wide-band-gap
semiconductor with high sensitivity to UV light. As expected, the
UV transmittance of the obtained TW-3 containing TiO2 is
only 20% for UV light of 250–400 nm. More importantly, this
dual-functional TW-3 possesses a lower thermal conductivity (0.3228
W/mK). These performances are significantly better than that of traditional
glass. In addition, the as-prepared bifunctional TW-3 also exhibits
high light transmittance (90%) and haze (90%), which results in a
higher transmission efficiency and more vital privacy than conventional
glass. This work provides a new method to design a high-performance
wood-based material for green and energy-saving thermal insulation
windows.