By Josh Perry, Editor
[email protected]

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge have developed a simple treatment that can improve the survival time for a conventional wetsuit by a factor of three.

From left, graduate student Anton Cottrill, Professor Jacopo Buongiorno and Professor Michael Strano try out their neoprene wetsuits at a pool at MIT’s athletic center.
(Susan Young/MIT)

According to a report from MIT, the process requires placing a neoprene wetsuit in a pressure tank autoclave filled with heavy, inert gas for a day. The treatment lasts for 20 hours, which is longer than anyone would spend on a dive, and it can be done in advance as long as the wetsuit is stored in a sealed bag.

This research was based on work with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and stemmed from visits to a number of military installations around the world.

“They looked at the different strategies that various animals use to survive in these frigid waters, and found three types: air pockets trapped in fur or feathers, as with otters and penguins; internally generated heat, as with some animals and fish (including great white sharks, which, surprisingly, are warm-blooded); or a layer of insulating material that greatly slows heat loss from the body, as with seals’ and whales’ blubber,” the article explained.

In the end, the researchers used a blubber-like insulating material that uses trapped pockets of heavy inert gas (xenon or krypton). The inert gas replaces air that is typically trapped in neoprene foam and considerably increases the insulating capabilities of the wetsuit.

“They found this could improve survivability in water colder than 10 degrees Celsius, raising it from less than one hour to two or three hours,” the article added. “The result could be a boon not just to those in the most extreme environments, but to anyone who uses wetsuits in cold waters, including swimmers, athletes, and surfers, as well as professional divers of all kinds.”

Researchers will work on creating a stable version of the wetsuit.

The research was recently published in RSC Advances. The abstract stated:

“Closed-cell foams are widely applied as insulation and essential for the thermal management of protective garments for extreme environments. In this work, we develop and demonstrate a strategy for drastically reducing the thermal conductivity of a flexible, closed-cell polychloroprene foam to 0.031 ± 0.002 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹, approaching values of an air gap (0.027 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹) for an extended period of time (>10 hours), within a material capable of textile processing. Ultra-insulating neoprene materials are synthesized using high-pressure processing at 243 kPa in a high-molecular-weight gas environment, such as Ar, Kr, or Xe.

“A Fickian diffusion model describes both the mass infusion and thermal conductivity reduction of the foam as a function of processing time, predicting a 24–72 hour required exposure time for full charging of a 6 mm thick 5 cm diameter neoprene sample. These results enable waterproof textile insulation that approximates a wearable air gap.

“We demonstrate a wetsuit made of ultra-low thermally conductive neoprene capable of potentially extending dive times to 2–3 hours in water below 10 °C, compared with <1 hour for the state-of-the-art. This work introduces the prospect of effectively wearing a flexible air gap for thermal protection in harsh environments.”