[freebeard]

Wonder no more:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineered_wood

Densified wood
Densified wood can be made by using a mechanical hot press to compress wood fibers, sometimes in combination with chemical modification of the wood. These processes have been shown to increase the density by a factor of three.[23] This increase in density is expected to enhance the strength and stiffness of the wood by a proportional amount.[24] Studies published in 2018[25] combined chemical processes with traditional mechanical hot press methods. These chemical processes break down lignin and hemicellulose that are found naturally in the wood. Following dissolution, the cellulose strands that remain are mechanically hot compressed. Compared to the three-fold increase in strength observed from hot pressing alone, chemically processed wood has been shown to yield an 11-fold improvement. This extra strength comes from hydrogen bonds formed between the aligned cellulose nanofibers.

The lignin can be removed without compression. That's called white wood.

Delignified wood
Removing lignin from wood has several other applications, apart from providing structural advantages. Delignification alters the mechanical, thermal, optical, fluidic and ionic properties and functions of the natural wood and is an effective approach to regulating its thermal properties, as it removes the thermally conductive lignin component, while generating a large number of nanopores in the cell walls which help reduce temperature change. Delignified wood reflects most incident light and appears white in color.[27][28] White wood (also known as nanowood) has high reflection haze, as well as high emissivity in the infrared wavelengths. These two characteristics generate a passive radiative cooling effect, with an average cooling power of 53 W⋅m−2 over a 24-hour period,[28] meaning that this wood does not "absorb" heat and therefore only emits the heat embedded in it.[29] Moreover, white wood not only possesses a lower thermal conductivity than natural wood, and it has better thermal performance than most commercially available insulating materials.[27] The modification of the mesoporous structure of the wood is responsible for the changes in wood performance.