With climate change and shrinking natural resources, scientists are searching for modern, renewable building materials. The future of construction may lie in annual plants—primarily straw and hemp. Researchers at the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology at the Poznań University of Life Sciences are developing plant-based materials that could one day replace traditional raw materials.
“We are working on the use of lignocellulosic materials. It’s a very broad concept—traditionally associated with wood, but increasingly with annual plants, mainly cereal straws. We are trying to develop a wide range of products from them: from low-density building materials designed for insulation, to furniture materials and even structural components,” said Prof. Radosław Mirski of the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology at the Poznań University of Life Sciences in an interview with Newseria.
In the university’s laboratories, scientists are developing insulation materials, furniture panels, and structural elements made from annual plants. Each raw material behaves differently, with distinct mechanical properties, density, and moisture resistance. The key lies in adapting technology to each resource. While wood remains indispensable in many structural applications, alternative raw materials offer lower density, better insulation, biodegradability, and faster renewability—making them a viable substitute for wood in the near future.
“From a material with a given initial density, it is difficult—or impossible—to create a low-density product with good insulation properties without significant processing. That is why the use of straw and hemp, both hurds and fibers, gives us much greater possibilities for developing new materials than wood does, even though wood’s applications are extremely broad,” Prof. Mirski explained.
According to data from Statistics Poland (GUS), Poland harvests 40 million cubic meters of wood annually, more than 90% of which comes from state-owned forests. Agriculture produces 30 million tons of straw each year, of which 19 million tons are used in farming—as chopped fodder, plowed back into soil to increase humus, or used as bedding.
“Polish forests are highly productive over an annual cycle. Even though straw is harvested every year, over an 80-year rotation period the mass of annually collected straw and harvested wood is quite similar. The exception is hemp, which can yield much more raw material,” said the expert.
Hemp cultivation in Poland remains a niche: in 2023, it covered only a few thousand hectares. Yet its potential is enormous—hemp can provide far more raw material than wood, and its possible applications in construction are virtually unlimited.
“In theory, you could build and furnish an entire house from hemp. Structurally, it wouldn’t resemble wood, but we are conducting research to produce not just surface materials, but also beam and load-bearing elements with high compressive strength,” Prof. Mirski emphasized.
According to him, straw and hemp construction is not a far-fetched vision but a realistic development path. Poland has significant potential in this area, both in biomass production and technological expertise.
“We have already developed a wide range of products that could be used at many stages of construction—from erecting the building itself to interior fittings. Even sanitary elements can be made from wood, and if they can be made from wood, they can also be made from annual plants. The advantage of lignocellulosic materials is that the final product can look like ceramic. This is definitely a direction we are working on,” the researcher explained.
At the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, students and scientists work on every stage: from plant cultivation to creating finished products. One example is an insulating panel for which a patent has already been granted—a lightweight, three-layer material with acoustic and thermal properties. It consists of a mounting-friendly outer layer, hemp fiber, and a decorative bark surface. The material has already been commercialized and is used in soundproofing systems in Belgium and the Netherlands.
