Journal
NATURE NANOTECHNOLOGY
Volume 10, Issue 3, Pages 277-283Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/NNANO.2014.248
Keywords
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Funding
- Swedish Strategic Foundation (SSF) [RMA11-0065]
- Wallenberg Wood Science Centre (WWSC)
- Swedish Research Council (VR)
- Humboldt Foundation
- Cost Action [MP1202]
- Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF) [RMA11-0065] Funding Source: Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF)
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High-performance thermally insulating materials from renewable resources are needed to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. Traditional fossil-fuel-derived insulation materials such as expanded polystyrene and polyurethane have thermal conductivities that are too high for retrofitting or for building new, surface-efficient passive houses. Tailored materials such as aerogels and vacuum insulating panels are fragile and susceptible to perforation. Here, we show that freeze-casting suspensions of cellulose nanofibres, graphene oxide and sepiolite nanorods produces super-insulating, fire-retardant and strong anisotropic foams that perform better than traditional polymer-based insulating materials. The foams are ultralight, show excellent combustion resistance and exhibit a thermal conductivity of 15 mW m(-1) K-1, which is about half that of expanded polystyrene. At 30 degrees C and 85% relative humidity, the foams retained more than half of their initial strength. Our results show that nanoscale engineering is a promising strategy for producing foams with excellent properties using cellulose and other renewable nanosized fibrous materials.
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