by josh perry, editor
[email protected]

scientists from the national university of singapore (nus) faculty of engineering have created a fast, cheap, and environmentally-friendly method for converting cotton-based fabric waste into a highly-compressible and ultralight cotton aerogel with high thermal insulation properties.

the cotton aerogel is highly-compressible. (national university of singapore/youtube)

according to a report from the university, researchers discovered that cotton aerogels can be easily compressed and regain 97 percent of their original shape when placed in water. it only takes eight hours to fabricate the aerogel, nine times faster than earlier work by the research team and 20 times faster than commercial processes.

one of the commercial applications that scientists believe would be relevant to this new aerogel is insulating the water bottles used by soldiers. working with dso national laboratories, the researchers created a thermal jacket from the aerogel that kept an ice slurry at 0.1-1.0°c for more than four hours.

“the thermal jacket, which weighs about 200 grams, consists of a cotton aerogel layer embedded within commonly used fabrics to provide heat insulation,” the article explained. not only is this thermal jacket lighter but also more cost-effective than commercially-available products.

a patent has been filed for the new technology.

the research was recently published in colloids and surfaces a: physicochemical and engineering aspects. the abstract read:

“haemostatic devices can exert internal pressure to promote blood clotting and reduce blood flow, potentially reducing mortality rates of gunshot wounds or other deeply penetrating wounds. for the first time, cotton aerogels have been successfully developed from commercial cotton fibers.

“the developed cotton aerogels can be compressed to form aerogel pallets which can be used for haemostatic devices. the effects of various cotton fiber concentrations, their morphology and chitosan concentrations on volume expansion ratio, expansion time and hydrostatic pressure of the hybrid cotton aerogels are investigated comprehensively.

“the chitosan-coated cellulose-cotton aerogel pallets having 0.7 wt% of the fibers, with cellulose-cotton ratio of 1:2 and 0.5 wt% of the coated chitosan showed excellent haemostatic performance. the volume expansion ratio of 16.0, expansion time of 4.5 s and hydrostatic pressure of 11.5 mmhg of each aerogel pallet are much better than those of commercial haemostatic sponges.

“the developed cotton-based aerogels have several potential applications such as haemostatic devices, stopping serious liquid leakage, oil-spill cleaning, personal care and heat and sound insulation applications.”

learn more about the aerogel in the video below: