Pykrete

Pykrete is a composite material made of approximately 14% sawdust (or, less frequently, wood pulp) and 86% ice by weight, invented by Max Perutz and proposed during World War II by Geoffrey Pyke to the Royal Navy as a candidate material for making a huge, unsinkable aircraft carrier, Project Habbakuk, actually more of a floating island than a ship in the traditional sense. Pykrete has some interesting properties, notably its relatively slow melting rate (due to low thermal conductivity), and its vastly improved strength and toughness over pure ice, actually closer to concrete. Pykrete is slightly harder to form than concrete, as it expands while freezing, but can be repaired and maintained from the sea's most abundant raw material.

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Composite: The term composite can refer to several different things:...

Sawdust: Sawdust is composed of fine particles of wood. This material is produced from cutting with a saw, hence its name. It has a variety of practical uses, including serving as a mulch or as a fuel, or for the manufacture of chipboard. It has also been used in artistic displays and as scatter. Perhaps t...

Wood pulp: Wood pulp is the most common material used to make paper. The timber resources used to make wood pulp are referred to as pulpwood. Wood pulp generally comes from softwood trees such as spruce, pine, fir, larch and hemlock, but also some hardwoods such as eucalyptus and birch....