Lightweight and Thermally Insulating Nanowood

Current thermal insulating materials in buildings have many shortcomings, such as a lack meaningful mechanical strength as well as potential health and environmental risks.Moreover, to be effective, they require invasive retrofits which entail a highupfront cost to consumers, which has created hurdles in meeting DOE efficiency objectives.Delignified wood with aligned cellulose nanofibers (nanowood) equals stronger and better thermal insulation.The anisotropic, low thermal conductivity, high strength, and hydrophobic features of nanowood make it a competitive, cost-effective, and environmental-friendly insulation material for energy-efficient building retrofits.(1) Fabrication of nanowood with large size was successfully demonstrated to show the feasibility of scaled-up manufacturing.(2) A low thermal conductivity of 0.03 W/m·K for nanowood was maintained with a scalable fabrication process.(e.g.no sacrifice in the thermal properties when scaling up the fabrication process).(3) Initial cost analysis was performed and compared with other thermal insulation materials.(4) Evaluations of energy savings from nanowood for energy-efficient buildings were conducted.(5) Initial contact with industry partners and potential customers was also established.(1) Evaluate comprehensive performance of nanowood by scalable manufacturing methods, with a focus on the investigation of microstructure and its effect on thermal conductivities.(2) Investigate scale-up manufacturing of nanowood with a high yield by designing industrialized manufacturing process and establishing partnerships and supply chains.(3) Design wall integration and energy efficiency modeling for applications and conduct tech-tomarket analysis for the commercialization of nanowood.Nanowood can be easily integrated to prefabricated wall panels, which can be used as an exterior or interior retrofitting material.It can also be used for energy efficient window frames due to its high mechanical strength and thermal insulation properties.Nanowood exhibits other benefits: it is made solely from wood without polymer additives, and its production can be easily scaled up, thus being competitive in the thermal insulation market.In addition, the adoption of nanowood benefits the public both economically and environmentally, such as encouraging high value-added wood production and generating job opportunities to support underserved rural areas.The application of nanowood in building retrofits also increases energy savings and reduces operational costs and greenhouse gas emissions.Moreover, nanowood has superior water and chemical stabilities over regular wood, and therefore can be used in more long-term applications, which addresses the goal of finding more sustainable uses of natural resources.