<br/>The increasing costs of energy as well as the negative impact on the environment by energy production plants have created a great need to reduce energy consumption. Therefore, there has been a growing interest for thermal management materials that can fulfill the needs for thermal insulation over different length scales, from applications in the building sector to applications in the electronics industry. Additive Manufacturing (AM) has recently been exploited as a technique to produce multi-scale structures with aligned building blocks that, due to anisotropic reinforcement, show multifunctionality and enhanced mechanical properties. Here, we describe how water-based inks loaded with renewable building blocks such as cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) and cellulose nanofibers (CNF) can be used to additively manufacture textured aerogels with exceptional mechanical and insulating properties. Our cellulose-based aerogel composites exhibit anisotropic thermal properties with very low thermal conductivity (down to 0.033 W/mK) perpendicular to the printing direction and a conductivity twice as high 0.061 W/mK along the printing direction. Moreover, our aerogels are mechanically robust, displaying a compression modulus of up to 87 MPa in the printing direction. The excellent mechanical and insulating properties, abundance, biodegradability and 3D-printability make cellulose-based aerogels a promising insulating material for many applications.

Anisotropic, strong and thermally insulating 3D printed nanocellulose aerogels

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.