Pys.org June 18, 2021
Researchers in the UK have developed an ultralight graphene oxide (GO)/polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) aerogel (GPA) with hierarchical and tunable porosity embedded in a honeycomb scaffold. The aerogels have an enhanced ability to dissipate sound energy, with an extremely low density of 2.10 kg m−3. They experimentally evaluated and optimised the effects of composition and thickness on sound absorption, and sound transmission losses. Then employed a semi-analytical approach to evaluate the effect of different processing times on acoustic properties and assessed the relationships between the acoustic and non-acoustic properties of the materials. Over the 400–2500 Hz range, the reported average sound absorption coefficients are as high as 0.79, while the average sound transmission losses can reach 15.8 dB. According to the researchers the material may possess other functional properties such as fire resistance and EMI shielding, and will prove to be novel acoustic materials for advanced engineering applications…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Schematic illustration of the ultralight GPAs. Credit: Scientific Reports volume 11, Article number: 10572 (2021)