With increasing population and energy consumption, energy conservation and management has become more and more important to alleviate the demand in energy, most of which is derived from fossil fuel. As a renewable and sustainable bio-based material, cellulose nanofibrils aerogel has been actively researched for thermal insulation and management applications due to its low density and high porosity. However, the use of CNF aerogel is limited by several drawbacks including relatively high thermal conductivity and non-shape recovery after being compressed. In this presentation, I will introduce the recent research in my lab in the fabrication of CNF aerogel to improve its performance, using emulsion templating strategy. CNF aerogel with quasi-closed pores can be produced by extracting the oil phase, which can significantly low the thermal conductivity to 15.5 mW/mK-1. In addition, emulsion templating can also facilely introduce paraffin wax-based phase change material, which can be used for energy storage and sustained release. The CNF/PCM composite aerogel showed high latent heat of 173.59 J/g and excellent form stability that can maintain the structure even at 190 °C. Therefore, we consider such emulsion templating method to be an effective strategy in producing CNF aerogel with enhanced thermal insulation and management performance.

Emulsion templating: a new strategy in producing cellulose nanofibrils aerogel for thermal insulation and management applications

ACS Spring 2022

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