A research team led with the aid of Associate Professor Hai Minh Duong (left) and Professor Nhan Phan-Thien from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the National University of Singapore’s Faculty of Engineering have devised a quick, reasonably-priced and green method to convert style waste into fantastically compressible and ultralight cotton aerogels.
Credit: National University of Singapore
A research group from the National University of Singapore (NUS) Faculty of Engineering has efficiently devised a quick, cheap, and inexperienced method to transform cotton-based total fabric waste, including unwanted apparel, into relatively compressible and ultralight cotton aerogels. The researchers also verified this novel’s utility to keep military water bottles bloodless and for powerful management of fast bleeding.
Aerogels are among the world’s lightest substances and are relatively porous with strong absorption potential and occasional thermal conductivity. These unique houses make aerogels exceptionally suitable for programs in areas that include oil-spill cleaning, personal care products together with diapers, as well as for warmth and sound insulation. While aerogels have been first created within the Nineteen Thirties, this advanced fabric has not been extensively adopted by using industries because of its high manufacturing cost. Leading aerogel scientists around the arena are therefore actively looking at methods to enhance the manufacturing and consumption of different forms of aerogels. Contributing to this global attempt, the NUS team has successfully pioneered aerogels’ improvement using cotton fibers harvested from fabric waste.
From unwanted apparel to supermaterial
Led with the aid of Associate Professor Hai Minh Duong and Professor Nhan Phan-Thien from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at NUS Faculty of Engineering, the research group observed that the radical cotton aerogels may be easily compressed and that they can also very quickly get better up to ninety-seven in step with cent in their authentic length when positioned in the water.
“This new green cotton aerogel is a major development from the aerogel that our crew had previously advanced the use of paper waste. It is highly compressible. Subsequently, garage and transportation costs can be significantly decreased. Furthermore, these cotton aerogels can be fabricated inside eight hours — that is 9 times faster than our advanced invention and approximately 20 times faster than modern-day industrial fabrication methods. They also are more potent, making them extra appropriate for mass manufacturing. While we have established novel applications of the cotton aerogels for powerful hemorrhage management and warmth insulation, we can continue to explore new capabilities for this superior fabric,” said Assoc Prof Duong.
Effective manipulate of speedy bleeding.
Hemorrhage, or the excessive and speedy lack of blood resulting from gunshot wounds or other deeply penetrating wounds, can frequently be existence-threatening. Hemorrhage control devices are used to exert internal strain to prevent bleeding and sell blood clotting.
Existing hemorrhage manipulate devices incorporate a syringe full of small tablets of cellulose-based total sponge, coated with chitosan, a natural agent derived from shrimp shells and other crustaceans that promotes blood clotting. The syringe is inserted into the wound to release the tablet, which expands and applies pressure on the wound to forestall the blood glide. However, the expansion and absorption costs of cellulose-primarily based sponges are nevertheless prolonged.
NUS researchers developed highly compressible hybrid cotton aerogel pellets to cope with those barriers, which can be extra effective than cellulose-primarily based sponges for the treatment of deep hemorrhagic wounds. These pellets — comprising a most efficient blend of cotton and cellulose aerogels coated with chitosan — are easy and cost-powerful to provide, and they may be easily integrated into a clinical syringe for use as a hemorrhage control device. The cotton aerogel pellets are also biocompatible; for this reason, they may be thoroughly administered for remedy.
“Each cotton aerogel pellet can enlarge to sixteen instances its length in four.5 seconds — larger and greater than three times faster than current cellulose-based sponges — while keeping their structural integrity. The unique morphology of the cotton aerogels lets in for a larger absorption capacity, even as the compressible nature enables the fabric to extend quicker to exert stress at the wound,” added Assoc Prof Duong.
This novel application’s findings have been published within the scientific magazine Colloids and Surfaces A in January 2018.
Heat insulation
Soldiers frequently embark on energetic physical activities in hot and humid conditions. The army canteen is a crucial item in a soldier’s survival kit, carrying fluid for rehydration and mitigation of warmth accidents. An army canteen can usually preserve one liter of water and preserve its cool temperature for about 30 minutes in our tropical weather.
In collaboration with DSO National Laboratories, the NUS research crew advanced a light-weight thermal jacket to maintain the temperature of ice slurry — crushed ice and liquid water — at zero.1 to at least one.0 diploma Celsius for greater than four hours. The thermal jacket, which weighs about 200 grams, includes a cotton aerogel layer embedded inside commonly used fabrics to offer warm insulation.
The cotton aerogel-insulated army canteen gives the better warmth insulation overall performance compared to industrial insulated water bottles, which include FLOE bottles and is rather akin to that of vacuum flasks. However, FLOE bottles and vacuum flasks are tons heavier and greater high priced.
“The warmth insulation assets of the unconventional cotton aerogels can be applied to numerous client merchandise, such as cooler baggage to keep food items clean. We also foresee awesome ability for other excessive cost programs, inclusive of pipeline insulation and transportation of liquefied herbal gasoline which needs to be saved at a low temperature,” stated Prof Nhan.
The NUS group has filed a patent for the unconventional cotton aerogels and is exploring possibilities to paintings with agencies to commercialize the technology.
