Additive manufacturing of eco-friendly building insulation materials by recycling pulp and paper

Meng-Lun Lee; Arpita Sarkar; Zipeng Guo; Chi Zhou; Jason N Armstrong; Shenqiang Ren

doi:10.1039/d3na00036b

Additive manufacturing of eco-friendly building insulation materials by recycling pulp and paper

Nanoscale Adv. 2023 Apr 17;5(9):2547-2552. doi: 10.1039/d3na00036b. eCollection 2023 May 2.

Authors

Meng-Lun Lee¹, Arpita Sarkar¹, Zipeng Guo², Chi Zhou², Jason N Armstrong¹, Shenqiang Ren^{1

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York Buffalo New York 14260 USA shenren@buffalo.edu.
² Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York Buffalo New York 14260 USA.
³ Department of Chemistry, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York Buffalo NY 14260 USA.
⁴ Research and Education in Energy, Environment & Water (RENEW), University at Buffalo, The State University of New York Buffalo NY 14260 USA.

Abstract

Thermal insulation materials by recycling pulp and paper wastes play an important role in environmental sustainability of green buildings. As society is pursuing the goal of zero carbon emissions, it is highly desirable to use eco-friendly materials and manufacturing technologies for building insulation envelopes. Here we report additive manufacturing of flexible and hydrophobic insulation composites from recycled cellulose-based fibers and silica aerogel. The resultant cellulose-aerogel composites exhibit thermal conductivity of 34.68 mW m^-1 K^-1, mechanical flexibility with a flexural modulus of 429.21 MPa, and superhydrophobicity with water contact angle of 158.72°. Moreover, we present the additive manufacturing process of recycled cellulose aerogel composites, providing enormous potential for high energy efficiency and carbon-sequestration building applications.