nature sustainability

Article https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-01035-y

A scalable high-porosity wood for sound

absorption and thermal insulation

Received: 21 March 2022 Xinpeng Zhao 1,10, Yu Liu1,10, Liuxian Zhao2,10, Amirhossein Yazdkhasti2,
Yimin Mao1,3, Amanda Pia Siciliano 1, Jiaqi Dai4, Shuangshuang Jing1,
Accepted: 28 November 2022
Hua Xie 1, Zhihan Li1, Shuaiming He 1, Bryson Callie Clifford 1, Jianguo Li1,
Published online: 9 January 2023 Grace S. Chen1, Emily Q. Wang1, Andre Desjarlais5, Daniel Saloni 6, Miao Yu2,
Jan Kośny7, J. Y. Zhu 8, Amy Gong4 & Liangbing Hu 1,9
Check for updates

The search for more-sustainable materials has motivated research on

lightweight, porous structures for thermal insulation and noise reduction,
such as for construction and cold-chain transportation. Wood, known as one
of the most renewable materials on Earth, has been widely and long used in
construction for its high strength/weight ratio, wide abundance, low cost
and relative sustainability. However, natural wood is much less efective at
reducing noise or preventing heat loss than conventional petroleum- and
mineral-based porous structures (for example, expanded polystyrene foam
and mineral wool). Here we report the extraordinary noise-reduction and
thermal-insulation capabilities of a scalable, high-porosity wood structure,
‘insulwood’, fabricated by removing lignin and hemicelluloses from natural
wood using a rapid (~1 h) high-temperature process followed by low-cost
ambient drying. Insulwood demonstrates a high porosity of ~0.93, a high
noise-reduction coefcient of 0.37 at a frequency range of 250–3,000 Hz
(for 10-mm-thick wood), a low radial thermal conductivity of 0.038 W m–1 K–1
and a high compressive strength of ~1.5 MPa at 60% strain. Furthermore, this
new wood-based material can be rapidly processed into a vacuum insulation
panel (~0.01 W m–1 K–1) for thermal insulation applications with limited space
(for example, refrigerators, cold-chain transportation and older buildings).
The material is unique in its combination of renewable source materials,
high porosity, high sound absorption, low thermal conductivity and high
mechanical robustness, as well as in its efcient, cost-efective and scalable
manufacturing. These attributes make insulwood promising as a sustainable
construction material for improved noise and thermal regulation.

In the United States, buildings account for ~40% of energy consumption is the noise from road traffic, construction sites and social activities,
and are the source of ~38% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions1. Reducing which can affect the health and well-being of residents. Therefore,
both the embodied CO2 that is emitted during the life cycle of building developing a high-performance multifunctional construction mate-
materials and the operational energy consumption of heating, ventila- rial that can both block sound transport and retard heat loss through
tion and air conditioning systems would play a critical role in minimiz- walls and roofs is key for improving occupant comfort and lowering
ing CO2 emissions. An additional problem associated with buildings carbon footprints. High-porosity structures (>0.9) can effectively

A full list of affiliations appears at the end of the paper.

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Article https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-01035-y

attenuate sound energy by increasing the air–pore wall friction2 as well a low thermal conductivity of 0.038 W m–1 K–1 and a high compressive
as decrease thermal transport by reducing the material’s cross-sectional strength of 1.5 MPa (60% compression) due to the retention of the
solid area and increasing the tortuosity of heat transfer pathways3–6. original hierarchical wood structure. We also showed the heat trans-
Currently, due largely to their low price, the commercial market for fer inside the insulwood can be further suppressed by sealing and
thermal-insulation and sound-absorption materials is dominated vacuuming air from the material to form a highly insulated vacuum
(>90% of the market share7) by porous structures that are produced insulation panel (VIP; Fig. 1a), enabling a low thermal conductivity
from petroleum-based polymers (for example, polyurethane foams of ~0.01 W m–1 K–1, which is approximately one-third lower compared
and expanded/extruded polystyrene foams) and rock- and slag-based with stationary air (~0.026 W m–1 K–1, 300 K, 1.0 atm). As a result of the
fibres (for example, mineral wools and glass wools)8–10. However, these aligned pores inherited from the natural wood starting material, the
synthetic porous materials rely on non-renewable sources and gener- outgassing rate of the insulwood is twice as fast as that of expanded
ate pollutants during manufacturing (for example, SOx and NOx)11. In polystyrene foams, which feature random pores, thus decreasing the
addition, the fabrication of these traditional construction materials time and energy needed to fabricate the panel. Most importantly, this
may involve high-temperature processes, which produce substantial fabrication process is compatible with existing infrastructures for
carbon emissions10,12,13. The disposal or landfill of the synthetic materi- delignification, chemical recovery methods and wastewater treatment
als, especially polymer foams, at the end of use can cause environmental in the pulp and paper industry32,33, simplifying transition into industrial
issues7,14. Replacing such carbon-intensive, non-renewable, synthetic manufacturing. Therefore, this work demonstrates a sustainable and
porous materials with renewable biomass-based structures could lead scalable insulation material for walls, roofs and floors that can improve
to a 16% reduction of embodied carbon in buildings15, which would be residential comfort in terms of decreased thermal and sound transfer
a notable improvement from an environmental standpoint. However, as well as provide enormous potential environmental benefits.
factors such as scalability and cost must be overcome to make such
biomass-based alternatives a reality. Results and discussion
Wood is a renewable structural material that has been used in Insulwood preparation and its structure characteristics
construction for thousands of years due to its excellent mechanical To prepare the insulwood (Fig. 2a), we selected natural paulownia
strength, natural abundance and low cost16. Recently, wood has also wood (Paulownia tomentosa, density of 0.25–0.30 g cm–3, cut along
emerged as an important sustainable building material due to its pro- the growth direction) as a starting material for its fast growth rate and
cessability, renewability and biodegradability16. However, due to its high biomass production (up to 50 t ha–1 yr–1) (refs. 34,35). Although
relatively low porosity compared with commercial porous structures recently developed in situ delignification techniques at 100 °C (ref. 23)
and strong covalent bonds between the cellulosic polysaccharides can remove lignin and hemicelluloses from natural wood, most earlier
(cellulose and hemicelluloses) and lignin of the wood cell walls, natural studies24–26 required multiple steps and sulfur-containing chemicals (for
wood features a radial thermal conductivity of 0.1–0.4 W m–1 K–1, which example, Na2SO3 and Na2S), resulting in long processing time (~5–10 h)
prevents it from effectively reducing heat loss17,18. In addition, natural (Fig. 2b). As an alternative, we used ~5.0 wt% NaOH aqueous solution
wood (without artificial pores19) is sound reflective and therefore a poor for delignification (a sulfur-free soda process36) under higher tempera-
noise absorber20–22. The addition of pores (or voids) has shown to be an ture. The high-temperature condition helps to rapidly remove lignin
effective way to increase sound dissipation and decrease the thermal and hemicelluloses through various chemical reactions (for example,
conductivity of solid materials since pores increase the tortuosity of β–O–4 bond cleavage of lignin, peeling and alkaline hydrolysis of hemi-
heat and sound transfer paths2,4. Recent studies have begun to develop celluloses) within 1.0 h, which is more than ten times faster than current
porous wood-based materials via ‘top-down’ processes, including vari- state-of-the-art methods24–26,29. In addition, this approach retains the
ous chemical treatments16,23–28 and fungal decay29. For example, Wang desired natural structure of the hierarchically aligned cellulose fibres,
and co-workers24 prepared a porous spongy wood from natural balsa allowing delignified wood to achieve a good mechanical strength. The
by selectively removing lignin (NaClO2, 100 °C for 6 h) and hemicel- water permeated in the porous wood structure during delignification
luloses (NaOH, 80 °C for 8 h), followed by freeze drying at −56 °C for is then replaced by ethanol with low surface tension, which prevents
36 h. Similarly, Hu and co-workers25 transformed bulk natural balsa pore collapse on removal when dried under ambient conditions (see
into a porous wood aerogel using a delignification process (NaOH/ details in Supplementary Figs. 1–6). Furthermore, we then completely
Na2SO3 and H2O2) at 100 °C for more than 5 h, followed by freeze dry- dried the delignified wood under ambient conditions to obtain the
ing (~24 h). Although these top-down methods start with low-cost raw final insulwood product in just 7.0 h, which is much faster than freeze
materials and require only one or two procedures, they suffer from drying (Fig. 2b).
several drawbacks, including long processing times (several days to As shown in Fig. 2c,d and Supplementary Fig. 7, natural paulownia
several weeks) and expensive drying processes (for example, freeze wood features a honeycomb-like cellular structure with thin cell walls
drying)24–26,29. Drying at ambient pressure and temperature would be that make up the vertically aligned tracheids (pore size of 20–50 µm)
simpler, more cost effective and energy saving. However, directly dry- and large vessels (pore size of 100–200 µm) of the wood structure.
ing water-filled cellulose-based materials generally causes structural The cell walls are composed primarily of cellulose microfibre bun-
collapse due to fiber hornification and hydrogen bonding, leading to dles bound within a matrix of lignin and hemicelluloses37. After the
a densified structure and not the desired porous morphology30,31. In delignification treatment and drying, the morphology and structure
addition, state-of-the-art porous wood-based materials24–26,29 suffer of the resulting insulwood change remarkably compared with the
from weak mechanical robustness as the wood cell structures are starting material. Figure 2e,f and Supplementary Fig. 8 show that
severely destroyed during the delignification process. As a result, it has numerous small voids (<10 µm) are generated between neighbouring
remained challenging to fabricate robust high-porosity cellulose-based wood cell walls (in the middle lamella region) due to detachment by the
materials in a scalable, fast and cost-effective way. removal of the lignin/hemicelluloses matrix, resulting in an increased
In this Article, we report a rapid and cost-effective top-down structural porosity. We confirmed lignin removal by comparing the
approach that applies a fast high-temperature delignification tech- Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra of the natural wood with the
nique to natural wood, followed by low-cost ambient pressure drying, insulwood (Fig. 2g), where characteristic lignin peaks at 1,593, 1,504
to produce a highly porous cellulose-based structure with the natural and 1,462 cm−1 (aromatic skeletal vibrations) disappeared after the
structure retained that we call ‘insulwood’ (Fig. 1a). Insulwood exhibits chemical treatment. The loss of the peaks at 1,737 and 1,236 cm−1 show
a high porosity of >0.93, a high noise-reduction coefficient of 0.37 at a that hemicelluloses in natural wood was also removed by the delignifi-
frequency range of 250–3,000 Hz (for a 10-mm-thick wood sample), cation treatment. In addition, we conducted a chemical analysis that

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Article https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-01035-y

a
Natural wood Insulwood

(Approximately 60% reduction in mass)

1. Chemical treatment

2. Solvent exchange

3. Ambient drying

Evacuating
b and sealing

0.12
Thermal conductivity (W m–1 K–1)

Natural wood Barrier ‘ilm

0.10 0.1020
Insulwood
Insulwood-based VIP
0.08

0.06

0.04
0.0378

0.02
0.0120
0
Outgassing

Fig. 1 | The fabrication and thermal performance of insulwood and the insulwood to evacuate quickly, creating a vacuum that helps suppress heat
insulwood-based VIPs. a, Schematic of the changes of wood pore structures conduction by the air. Note that the volumetric shrinkage of the insulwood
after rapid high-temperature delignification and in an insulwood-based VIP. sealed in the gas barrier envelope is ~25%. b, Comparison of the thermal
Removal of lignin and hemicelluloses can remarkably increase the porosity of insulation performances of natural wood (0.102 ± 0.008 W m–1 K–1), insulwood
the wood, which is beneficial for thermal insulation and sound absorption, while (0.0378 ± 0.003 W m–1 K–1) and VIPs (0.0120 ± 0.0009 W m–1 K–1) fabricated
still retaining the naturally aligned structure of the wood channels, maintaining using insulwood. The thermal conductivity of insulwood is comparable to most
a high mechanical performance. The insulwood is enveloped by an air- and commercial porous materials, such as expanded polystyrene and glass wool45. All
water-vapour-tight barrier layer. The open and aligned pores allow the gas inside data were analyzed from three independent measurements; error bars show s.d.

further showed the lignin and hemicelluloses were almost completely pores (<10 µm, in the middle lamella region) between the cell walls
removed after the delignification process (Supplementary Fig. 9). We (Fig. 2e,f), which provide tortuous pathways for sound-wave dissipation
also conducted two-dimensional wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) via the air–cell wall friction. Removing the lignin and hemicelluloses
to analyze the crystal polymorphism of insulwood (Supplementary also considerably decreases the mechanical strength of the wood cell
Fig. 10); the WAXS indicates that the cellulose I maintains its structure walls, which allows sound waves to be converted into mechanical and
and a portion of the cellulose Iβ increases during our high-temperature thermal energy through resonances of the wood cell walls.
delignification process. As a result of delignification, the density of To explore whether these structural changes did impact the sound
insulwood is ~40% that of the natural wood (Fig. 2h), increasing the transport, we used a two-microphone transfer function method40
porosity from ~80% to ~93%. Note that we evaluated the porosity of to measure the sound-absorption coefficient of insulwood (Fig. 3a
natural woods and insulwood on the basis of their weights and volumes, and Supplementary Fig. 12) at a frequency range of 250–3,000 Hz.
and the wood cell wall density is assumed to be 1.5 g cm–3 (refs. 38,39). For a 10-mm-thick piece of the insulwood, we found a relatively large
sound-absorption coefficient of 0.2 in the frequency range of 250–
Sound-absorption performance of the insulwood 1,250 Hz, which sharply increased to ~0.75 as the frequency increased
The sound-absorption performance of wood is determined mainly to 2,500 Hz (Fig. 3b). However, the sound-absorption coefficient of the
by its surface structure and the characteristics of the internal pores21. 10-mm-thick natural wood starting material was ~0.02 at a frequency
Although natural woods have abundant pores, their sound-absorption range of 250–2,000 Hz, which increased to 0.07 as the frequency
performance is poor due to the hard and dense surface and low increased to 3,000 Hz. Our results show that the delignification process
number of continuous pores21,22. After delignification, numerous greatly improves the sound-absorption coefficient of natural wood. For
millimetre-scale cracks (1–5 mm long) were formed uniformly on the example, at frequencies of 500 and 2,500 Hz, the sound-absorption
surface of insulwood (Supplementary Fig. 11) due to the detachment coefficient of insulwood is approximately ten times larger than that
of the wood cell walls after the high-temperature chemical treatment of natural wood (Fig. 3c).
(Fig. 2e,f). These cracks allow more incident sound waves to penetrate To reveal the fundamental physics, we investigated sound propaga-
the material, functioning as sound-absorbing pores. In addition, the tion inside both the natural wood starting material and insulwood using
delignification treatment generates numerous interconnected small finite element simulations, in which the simulated microstructures were

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Article https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-01035-y

a b

Insulwood <10 h
Insulwood
~ 1,000 h

Type of material
Decayed
wood

Wood
sponge Delignification, step 1
~30–40 h Delignification, step 2
Wood
aerogel Drying

0 1 2 3
10 10 10 10

Time (h)

c d g
1,593
1,462
Vessel 1,236

Transmittance
Bonded
1,504 1,737

Tracheids

Natural wood

200 µm Insulwood
10 µm

750 1,000 1,250 1,500 1,750 2,000

Wavenumber (cm–1)

e f h 0.30
Natural wood
Additional voids 0.27
0.25

0.20
Density (g cm–3)

0.15
Detached Insulwood
0.11
0.10

0.05
200 µm
10 µm
0
Type of material

Fig. 2 | Morphology and structure of the natural wood starting material demonstrating the adjacent, bonded cells in the natural wood. e, Cross-sectional
and insulwood. a, A digital image of a large-scale sheet of insulwood SEM image of the insulwood. f, Enlargement of e, demonstrating the separation
(60 cm × 45 cm × 1.25 cm), which is assembled from six identical smaller sheets of the adjacent cells in the porous insulwood. g, FTIR spectra of the natural
(10.8 cm × 45 cm × 1.25 cm). b, Comparison of the manufacturing rates of porous wood and insulwood. h, Density of the natural wood (0.27 ± 0.004 g cm−3) and
wood-based structures fabricated by various top-down processes24,25,29. c, Cross- insulwood (0.11 ± 0.0028 g cm−3). All data were analyzed from three independent
sectional SEM image of the natural wood starting material. d, Enlargement of c, measurements; error bars show s.d.

obtained on the basis of the scanning electron microscope (SEM) images between Fig. 3f and Fig. 3i confirms that friction between the sound
(Supplementary Figs. 13–17). Figure 3d–i compares the distributions of waves and the walls of the detached wood cells dissipates incidence
the acoustic pressure and velocity as well as total thermo-viscous power wave energy into heat. In addition, we compared the sound-absorption
dissipation within both natural wood and insulwood at a frequency coefficient of the insulwood with that of other porous materials such
of 500 Hz. Due to the rigid surface and tightly packed wood cells, the as mineral wools and polypropylene/polystyrene foams41–44 at 250 Hz,
incident sound waves are reflected (Fig. 3d) and induce only very low 500 Hz, 1,000 Hz, 1,500 Hz and 2,500 Hz (Fig. 3k). We also calculated
acoustic velocity (~10−11 m s–1; Fig. 3e) in the air within wood cells near the noise-reduction coefficient (Supplementary Fig. 17), which was
the surface of the incident sound waves. By contrast, due to the surface the average of the sound-absorption coefficients at 250 Hz, 500 Hz,
cracks and micropores generated by delignification, the incident sound 1,000 Hz, 1,500 Hz and 2,500 Hz. Overall, the insulwood exhibits bet-
wave can penetrate the insulwood (Fig. 3g), causing much higher acous- ter sound absorption than various porous structures41–44 with similar
tic velocity (~10−3 m s–1; Fig. 3h) in the air within insulwood. Comparison thickness in a wide frequency range.

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Article https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-01035-y

a b c
1.0 1.0
Natural wood Natural wood

Sound-absorption coe
icient
Sound-absorption coe
icient
Growth direction Insulwood Insulwood
0.8 0.8

Sound transport
0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2
200 µm
0 0
500 2,500
500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000
Frequency (Hz) Frequency (Hz)

d e f
15 15 50

Power dissipation (×10–1 W m–3)

Acoustic velocity (×10–12 m s–1)
Acoustic pressure (×10–3 Pa)

12 12 40

9 9 30

6 6 20

3 3 10

0 0 0

g h i
15 50 50

Power dissipation (×10–3 W m–3)

Acoustic velocity (×10–4 m s–1)
Acoustic pressure (×10–3 Pa)

12 40 40

9 30 30

6 20 20

3 10 10

0 0 0

j 1.0
Cellulose nanofibre foam, 20 mm Polystyrene foam, 10 mm
Gravelite, 10 mm Polystyrene foam, 20 mm
Sound-absorption coe
icient

0.8
Rubber granulate, 10 mm Paddy waster fibres,10 mm
Mineral wool, 10 mm Ceramic fibres, 11 mm
0.6
Granular polypropylene, 10 mm Insulwood, 10 mm

0.4

0.2

0
250 500 1,000 1,500 2,500
Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 3 | Sound absorption of the insulwood. a, SEM image of the insulwood with inside the natural wood at a frequency of 500 Hz. g–i, Simulated distributions of
the pores aligned along the wood growth direction. b, The sound-absorption the acoustic pressure (g), acoustic velocity (h) and total thermo-viscous power
coefficient of the natural wood and insulwood as a function of frequency. c, The dissipation density (i) inside the insulwood at a frequency of 500 Hz.
sound-absorption coefficient of the insulwood compared with that of the natural j, Comparison of the sound-absorption coefficients of the insulwood with various
wood at frequencies of 500 Hz (natural wood: 0.05 ± 0.0001 Hz; insulwood: sound-absorption materials41–44 at frequencies of 250 Hz, 500 Hz, 1,000 Hz,
0.24 ± 0.005 Hz) and 2,500 Hz (natural wood: 0.14 ± 0.003 Hz; insulwood: 1,500 Hz and 2,500 Hz. In the simulation, we assume the magnitude
0.79 ± 0.016 Hz). All data were analyzed from three independent measurements; of the incident wave is 1 Pa, the acoustic velocity indicates particle vibration
error bars show s.d. d–f, Simulated distributions of the acoustic pressure (d), velocity in the air and the total thermo-viscous power dissipation includes the
acoustic velocity (e) and total thermo-viscous power dissipation density (f) power loss through both thermal dissipation and viscous dissipation.

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Article https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-01035-y

a b c

0 0 10

Simulated heat low (×104 W m–2)

Simulated heat low (×102 W m–2)

–0.2 9

Na
–0.05

tur

Ins
8

Temperature (×10 °C)

–0.4

al

EP
ulw
w

S
oo
7

oo
–0.6 –0.10

d
–0.8 6

–0.15 5
–1.0
4
–1.2 –0.20
3
–1.4 2 cm
–0.25 2

d 0.12 e 2.0 f
Natural wood
Radial compressive strength (MPa)
Insulwood Wood-waste foam
Thermal conductivity (W m–1 K–1)

EPS
0.09 1.5
Glass wool

Insulwood Alignment

Material
0.06 1.0 Stone wool
Insulwood EPS
EPS
0.03 0.5

Insulwood, radial
0 0
Material 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
Radial compressive strain (%) Mechanical strength (MPa)

g h 10
5 i
Aligned pores Insulwood

4 EPS
10
Pressure (Pa)

3
10

2
10

45 Pa
200 µm 10
1
27 cm × 20 cm × 1 cm
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Time (s)

Fig. 4 | Thermal and mechanical properties of insulwood. a,b, Simulated under compression along the radial direction. f, Comparison of the mechanical
heat flow within the natural wood (a) and insulwood (b) under a temperature strength of insulwood with conventional thermal insulation materials, including
difference of 2 K. c, Infrared image of the insulwood and EPS on a hot plate at a wood-waste foam48, glass wool49, stone wool49 and EPS foam. g, SEM image
temperature of ~100 °C. d, Comparison of the thermal conductivities of natural of the aligned pores in the insulwood. h, Comparison of the outgassing rate of the
wood (0.102 ± 0.008 W m–1 K–1), insulwood (0.0378 ± 0.003 W m–1 K–1) and EPS insulwood with that of EPS. i, Image of a VIP made using insulwood as the
(0.0374 ± 0.003 W m–1 K–1). All data were analyzed from three independent core material.
measurements; error bars show s.d. e, Stress–strain curves of the insulwood

Thermal and mechanical performance of the insulwood air is assumed to be 0.34 W m–1 K–1 (ref. 46) and 0.026 W m–1 K–1 (ref. 5),
Heat transfer in wood is determined mainly by heat conduction through respectively (Supplementary Figs. 18–20). The simulation clearly shows
the solid wood cell walls and the air molecules inside the pores4. As a that heat flux through the solid (wood cell walls) is much higher than
result of the tightly packed wood cells and high fraction of solid content that through the air inside the pores (the interior of the wood cells),
(~20%), natural wood demonstrates a relatively high thermal conductiv- confirming that the solid conduction is responsible for the high ther-
ity (0.1–0.4 W m–1 K–1 (refs. 18,20)) in the radial direction (perpendicular mal conductivity of the natural wood (Fig. 4a). Removal of the lignin
to the wood growth direction) compared with that of conventional and hemicelluloses in the wood cell walls lowers the solid content of
porous materials (~0.035 W m–1 K–1 (ref. 45)) such as mineral wool, glass the insulwood and reduces the solid thermal conductivity of the wood
wool and expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam. Figure 4a depicts the heat cell wall. As shown in Fig. 4b, heat flux through the insulwood under a
flow in natural wood under a temperature difference of 2.0 K, where the temperature difference of 2.0 K is much lower than that through the
thermal conductivity of the solid constructed by the wood cells and natural wood due to the increased porosity. Meanwhile, the heat flux

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Article https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-01035-y

of the insulwood is more evenly distributed than in the natural wood than that of conventional EPS, as shown in Fig. 4h. These unique fea-
(Fig. 4a,b) and close to a one-dimensional heat transfer (Supplemen- tures suggest the commercial potential of insulwood-based VIPs, par-
tary Fig. 19) because of the formation of pores between the wood cells ticularly as a more-sustainable alternative to conventional materials.
after delignification. As a proof of the concept, we fabricated an initial insulwood VIP design
We directly visualized the effectiveness of the insulwood as a ther- (Fig. 4i), in which the insulwood demonstrated in Fig. 2a was used as
mal barrier by placing the material on a hot plate (~100 °C) and mapping the core. The measured thermal conductivity of the fabricated VIPs at
its temperature distribution using an infrared thermal imaging camera. a pressure of ~50 Pa was found to be ~0.012 W m–1 K–1, which is one-third
As shown in Fig. 4c, the temperature distribution of the insulwood that of the porous wood structure and half that of stagnant air (Fig. 1c).
(radial direction) is very similar to that of an EPS foam (~0.016 g cm–3, Since the gas barrier film is sound reflective and blocks the penetration
98.4% porosity) on the hot plate, which features a thermal conductivity of sound waves, we note that the sound-absorption coefficient of the
of ~0.038 W m–1 K–1. This result indicates that the thermal insulation insulwood-based VIPs is notably lower than that of insulwood.
performance of the insulwood in the radial direction is comparable In summary, we report a rapid, low-cost and scalable method
to that of EPS foam. We measured the thermal conductivity of the of fabricating cellulose-based porous insulwood based on an in situ
insulwood using a reduced-scale hot-box method (Supplementary delignification, solvent exchange and ambient drying process. Lignin
Fig. 21) developed by Zhao and co-workers47. As shown in Fig. 4d, the and hemicelluloses, which account for up to 60% of the wood mass,
insulwood has a low thermal conductivity of ~0.038 W m–1 K–1, which is are removed from a natural wood via chemical treatment in just
around one-third that of the natural wood (~0.1 W m–1 K–1). Interestingly, 1.0 h, which allows us to create numerous pores (voids) between the
T the insulwood demonstrates almost the same thermal insulation wood cell walls without destroying the hierarchically aligned cel-
performance as the EPS in terms of the temperature difference, heat lulose fibres. As a proof of concept for large-scale production, we
flux and thermal conductivity measured by the reduced-scale hot-box demonstrated the fabrication of a piece of insulwood with a size of
method (Fig. 4d and Supplementary Figs. 21–23), which confirms that 60 cm × 45 cm × 1.25 cm using already well-established infrastructure
the thermal insulation performance of the insulwood in the radial and equipment from the pulp and paper industry. As a result of its high
direction is comparable to EPS (Fig. 4c). porosity (~93%), the insulwood demonstrates a high noise reduction
While thermally insulative materials can decrease the transfer of 0.37 for frequencies at 250–3,000 Hz for a 10-mm-thick sample.
of heat, they also tend to demonstrate weak structural stability due The high porosity also endows the insulwood with a low thermal con-
to the high-volume fraction of pores. An important advance of our ductivity of 0.038 W m–1 K–1, which is close to that of the widely used
insulwood compared with conventional thermal insulators, such as thermally insulating EPS foam. Furthermore, the porous wood struc-
EPS, mineral wool and glass wool, is its improved mechanical strength ture is highly attractive for fabricating VIPs with an ultralow thermal
against compression. Figure 4e shows the compressive strain–stress conductivity (~0.01 W m–1 K–1) due to the material’s fast outgassing
curves of the insulwood in the radial direction. When the strain is 60% rate, sustainability and environmental safety. Compared with existing
in the radial direction, the compressive strain reaches up to 1.5 MPa, time-consuming and energy-intensive methods, our fast delignifica-
which is much higher than that of conventional porous structures tion process and ambient drying method have a higher production
such as wood-waste-based foam48, glass/stone49 wool and EPS foam efficiency, lower cost and scalability. This newly developed affordable
(Fig. 4e,f). In addition, due to the open pore structure of insulating and sustainable cellulose-based insulwood with low thermal conduc-
materials and the chemical bonds of cellulose chains, the thermal tivity, high sound-absorption coefficient, high mechanical strength
and mechanical performance of insulwood is sensitive to moisture and reduced CO2 emissions can replace conventional porous materials
(Supplementary Figs. 24–26) and prone to fire. We note that these used in buildings, transportation and industry.
negative properties of insulwood, such as moisture resistance and fire
retardancy, can be largely improved by chemical treatments such as Methods
spray coating (Supplementary Figs. 27 and 28). Materials and chemicals
As a result of the micrometre-scale pores, conventional thermal Commercially available kiln-dried paulownia wood logs (10–15% mois-
insulation materials such as EPS foams, glass wools and mineral wools ture content, 10.0–12.5 mm thickness) were used for the fabrication of
and the developed insulwood exhibit a thermal conductivity higher insulwood. Note that the moisture content of the starting wood blocks
than that of stagnant air (0.026 W m–1 K–1, 1.0 atm, 300 K)5,45.To achieve has no influence on the final properties of the insulwood. Sodium
the required thermal insulation performance for buildings (for exam- hydroxide (>97.0%, Sigma-Aldrich) and deionized water were used
ple, walls and roofs), conventional thermal insulation materials must for processing the wood. Ethanol (>99.8%, Sigma-Aldrich) was used
have a thickness of up 50 cm (refs. 45,50), which results in reduced for solvent exchange.
space and complex geometric structures. Further reduction in the ther-
mal conductivity of porous materials can be achieved by vacuuming the Fabrication of the insulwood
porous structures to suppress gaseous thermal conduction4,5. VIPs are A paulownia wood log was cut parallel to the growth (fibre alignment)
typically made of a porous core material that is evacuated then sealed direction to form a wood block. The wood block was then boiled in a
by a gas-tight barrier film (for example, multilayer polymer and metal solution of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) with a mass fraction of 5.0 wt%.
films) to achieve an ultralow thermal conductivity50. However, current The delignified wood was then washed with water to completely remove
VIPs, and particularly many of their core materials such as fumed silica the chemical waste, bringing the pH to 7. The solvent exchange was
nanoparticles and plastic foam cores (for example, polyurethane and performed by immersing the wood block in ethanol three times, each
EPS foams)50, cannot meet the rising standards of sustainability and lasting for 1 h. The obtained wood blocks were then dried in an ambient
environmental safety for building applications. environment for 7 h to achieve the final insulwood product.
As a potential substitute for conventional VIP cores,
cellulose-based insulation materials have several advantages, includ- Fabrication of the VIP
ing low cost and low environmental impact over their life cycle. In addi- The insulwood blocks were first dried at 105 °C for 24 h in air to com-
tion, the aligned channels of insulwood could enable faster evacuation pletely remove the moisture absorbed by the cellulose fibres. The dried
during VIP manufacturing, which would dramatically reduce the gas insulwood blocks were then placed in a gas/moisture barrier envelope.
evacuation time and energy consumption, leading to additional cost After that, the VIP was obtained by pumping out the air inside the enve-
reduction (Fig. 4g and Supplementary Figs. 29 and 30). Indeed, we lope with a vacuum pump (Pfeiffer HiCube 30), followed by a sealing
found that the outgassing rate of the insulwood was two times faster process using an impulse heat sealer at a pressure of less than 50 Pa.

Nature Sustainability | Volume 6 | March 2023 | 306–315 312

Article https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-01035-y

Measurements and characterizations 4. Zhao, X., Brozena, A. H. & Hu, L. Critical roles of pores and
A SEM (Tescan XEIA) was used to characterize the morphology and moisture in sustainable nanocellulose-based super-thermal
structure of natural and delignified woods. A WAXS Xeuss 2.0 system insulators. Matter 4, 769–772 (2021).
with a Cu Kα (wavelength is 1.542 Å) microfocus source and Dectris 5. Liu, H. & Zhao, X. Thermal conductivity analysis of high porosity
Pilatus 300k detector was conducted to characterize crystal polymor- structures with open and closed pores. Int. J. Heat Mass Transf.
phism of natural paulownia wood and insulwood. A Thermo Nicolet 183, 122089 (2022).
NEXUS 670 FTIR was used to measure the FTIR spectrum. Compres- 6. Lavoine, N. & Bergström, L. Nanocellulose-based foams and
sion and bending tests were performed by using an Instron 3367 Uni- aerogels: processing, properties, and applications. J. Mater.
versal Test System with a load capacity of 30 kN at a crosshead speed Chem. A 5, 16105–16117 (2017).
of 5 mm min–1. An infrared camera FLIR E8 was used to measure the 7. Asdrubali, F., D’Alessandro, F. & Schiavoni, S. A review of
temperature distribution. unconventional sustainable building insulation materials. Sustain.
Mater. Technol. 4, 1–17 (2015).
Wood composition analysis 8. Schiavoni, S., Bianchi, F. & Asdrubali, F. Insulation materials for
We measured the cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin compositions of the building sector: a review and comparative analysis. Renew.
natural woods and insulwood following the standard biomass analytical Sustain. Energy Rev. 62, 988–1011 (2016).
methods provided by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory51. To 9. Forouharmajd, F. & Mohammadi, Z. Assessment of normal
ensure that the measurements are reliable and representative of the entire incidence absorption performance of sound absorbing materials.
wood panel, we first milled the wood panel (natural wood or insulwood) Int. J. Environ. Health Eng. 5, 10 (2016).
into wood powder with a diameter of <0.5 mm and mixed it evenly. Each 10. Yang, T. et al. Sound absorption properties of natural fibers: a
measurement was performed three times independent of one another. review. Sustainability 12, 8477 (2020).
11. Liu, L. et al. The development history and prospects of
Thermal conductivity and sound-absorption measurement biomass-based insulation materials for buildings. Renew. Sustain.
We employed a reduced-scale hot box for thermal conductivity meas- Energy Rev. 69, 912–932 (2017).
urements47. Surface thermocouples (Omega, accuracy ±0.5 °C) and 12. Hill, C., Norton, A. & Dibdiakova, J. A comparison of the
heat flux sensor (greenTEG gSKIN-XO, ±3%) were attached to the speci- environmental impacts of diferent categories of insulation
men (dimensions of 17.8 cm × 7.8 cm × 1.0 cm, ambient moisture around materials. Energy Build. 162, 12–20 (2018).
50%) for surface temperature and heat-flux measurement. Steady-state 13. Papadopoulos, A. M. & Giama, E. Environmental performance
conditions were ensured by controlling the power of the heat source. evaluation of thermal insulation materials and its impact on the
The thermal conductivity of the specimen can be obtained according to building. Build. Environ. 42, 2178–2187 (2007).
Fourier’s law. We validated the measured thermal conductivities from 14. Xia, Q. et al. A strong, biodegradable and recyclable
the reduced-scale hot-box method by using commercial Thermtest lignocellulosic bioplastic. Nat. Sustain. 4, 627–635 (2021).
HFM-100 and found the difference to be within 10%. The absorption 15. Esau, R., Jungclaus, M., Olgyay, V. & Rempher, A. Reducing
test was conducted using an ACUPRO impedance tube (by TFAcoustics, Embodied Carbon in Buildings (RMI, 2021).
LLC), which implements ISO10534-2 and ASTM E1050 for the measure- 16. Chen, C. et al. Structure–property–function relationships of
ment of sound-absorption coefficient as a function of frequency40,52. natural and engineered wood. Nat. Rev. Mater. 5, 642–666
The measured samples were prepared as cylinders with a radius of (2020).
35 mm and a thickness of 10 mm. A speaker located at one end of the 17. Koshijima, T. & Watanabe, T. Association Between Lignin and
impedance tube broadcast a broadband white noise. The incident wave Carbohydrates in Wood and Other Plant Tissues (Springer, 2013).
and echo reflected from the sample on the other end of the tube were 18. Suleiman, B., Larfeldt, J., Leckner, B. & Gustavsson, M. Thermal
measured using two microphones. On the basis of these measurements, conductivity and difusivity of wood. Wood Sci. Technol. 33,
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The measurements were calibrated by using materials of known dis- coeficients of perforated wooden panels by using artificial neural
sipation, and each measurement was repeated 3 times to increase the networks. Appl. Acoust. 70, 31–40 (2009).
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(~50%), air pressure (~1.0 atm) and temperature (~20 °C). acoustical, and environmental properties of wooden materials for
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Reporting summary 21. Kang, C., Kang, W., Chung, W., Matsumura, J. & Oda, K. Changes
Further information on research design is available in the Nature in anatomical features, air permeability and sound absorption
Research Reporting Summary linked to this article. capability of wood induced by delignification treatment. 53,
479–483 (Faculty of Agriculture, Kyushu University, 2008).
Data availability 22. Kolya, H. & Kang, C. W. High acoustic absorption properties of
The data that support the findings of this study are available within this hackberry compared to nine diferent hardwood species: a novel
article and its Supplementary Information. Source data are provided finding for acoustical engineers. Appl. Acoust. 169, 107475 (2020).
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36. Borrega, M., Tolonen, L. K., Bardot, F., Testova, L. & Sixta, H. Author contributions
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high-purity dissolving pulp after alkaline pulping. Bioresour. and Y.L. contributed to the insulwood fabrication and characterization.
Technol. 135, 665–671 (2013). Y.M. contributed wide-angle X-ray scattering measurement. A.P.S.,
37. Pettersen, R. C. in The Chemistry of Solid Wood (ed. Rowell, R.) S.J., H.X., Z.L., J.L. and B.C.C. contributed to collection of the SEM and
57–126 (ACS, 1984). digital images. J.D. and J.Y.Z. contributed to the large-scale sample
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39. Ross, R. J. Wood Handbook: Wood as an Engineering Material measurements and simulations. G.S.C. and E.Q.W. contributed to
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40. Acoustics—Determination of Sound Absorption Coeficient and provided characterization via FTIR. A.O.D. validated the thermal
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(ISO, 1998). woods selection and insulwood fabrication. J.K. contributed to the
41. Sikora, J. & Turkiewicz, J. Sound absorption coeficients of design of the VIP fiber core, provided useful suggestions for VIP
granular materials. Mech. Control 29, 149–157 (2010). fabrication, and performed thermal performance analysis. X.Z. and
42. Putra, A., Abdullah, Y., Efendy, H., Mohamad, W. & Salleh, N. L.H. collaboratively analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript. All
Biomass from paddy waste fibers as sustainable acoustic authors commented on the final manuscript.
material. Adv. Acoust. Vib. 2013, 605932 (2013).
43. Shen, L. et al. Hierarchical pore structure based on cellulose Competing interests
nanofiber/melamine composite foam with enhanced The authors declare the following competing interests: Dr. Liangbing
sound absorption performance. Carbohydr. Polym. 255, 117405 Hu co-founded a company, InventWood, to commercialize
(2021). wood-based thermal/acoustic insulation materials. However, all
44. Jia, C. et al. Highly compressible and anisotropic lamellar results reported herein were performed under federal sponsorship.
ceramic sponges with superior thermal insulation and The remaining authors declare no competing interests.
acoustic absorption performances. Nat. Commun. 11,
3732 (2020). Additional information
45. Jelle, B. P. Traditional, state-of-the-art and future Supplementary information The online version contains supplementary
thermal building insulation materials and solutions—properties, material available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-01035-y.
requirements and possibilities. Energy Build. 43, 2549–2563
(2011). Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to
46. Eitelberger, J. & Hofstetter, K. Prediction of transport properties Liangbing Hu.
of wood below the fiber saturation point—a multiscale
homogenization approach and its experimental Peer review information Nature Sustainability thanks Kai Zhang and
validation: part I: thermal conductivity. Compos. Sci. Technol. 71, the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer
134–144 (2011). review of this work.
47. Zhao, X. et al. Reduced-scale hot box method for thermal
characterization of window insulation materials. Appl. Therm. Reprints and permissions information is available at
Eng. 160, 114026 (2019). www.nature.com/reprints.
48. Beluns, S. et al. From wood and hemp biomass wastes to
sustainable nanocellulose foams. Ind. Crops Prod. 170, Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to
113780 (2021). jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional afiliations.

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Article https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-01035-y

Disclaimer The identification of any commercial product or trade the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the
name does not imply endorsement or recommendation by the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the
National Institute of Standards and Technology. terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited
exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with 2023

1
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. 2Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. 3NIST Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg,
MD, USA. 4InventWood LLC, College Park, MD, USA. 5Buildings and Transportation Science Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN,
USA. 6Department of Forest Biomaterials, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA. 7Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of
Massachusetts, Lowell, MA, USA. 8USDA Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, WI, USA. 9Center for Materials Innovation, University of Maryland, College
Park, MD, USA. 10These authors contributed equally: Xinpeng Zhao, Yu Liu, Liuxian Zhao. e-mail:binghu@umd.edu

Nature Sustainability | Volume 6 | March 2023 | 306–315 315

 nature portfolio | reporting summary
Corresponding author(s): Liangbing Hu
Last updated by author(s): Nov 15, 2022

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Study description Herein, we report the extraordinary noise reduction and thermal insulation capabilities of a scalable, high-porosity wood structure
(called "insulwood") that is fabricated by removing lignin and hemicellulose from natural wood through a rapid high-temperature
process, followed by low-cost ambient drying.

Research sample Natural paulownia wood (density of 0.25-0.30 g/cm3) was selected as a starting material due to its fast growth rate and high biomass
production (up to 50 ton/ha per year).

Sampling strategy A paulownia wood log was cut along parallel to the growth (i.e., fiber alignment) direction to form a wood block. The wood block was
then boiled in a solution of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) with a mass fraction of 5.0 wt.%, followed by solvent exchange to completely
replace the water inside the wood cells with ethanol. The obtained wood blocks were then dried in an ambient environment for 7
hours to achieve the final insulwood product.

Data collection Three samples of each material were tested to obtain the averaged values. Xinpeng Zhao carried out experiments and recorded the
data. Liuxian Zhao carried out the sound absorption simulation and recorded the data. Xinpeng Zhao carried out the thermal
transport simulation and recorded the data.

Timing and spatial scale The data collection begins from April 2021 to December 2021.There is no obvious difference in the porosity, thermal and sound
absorption between insulwoods made from natural paulownia wood from various locations.

Data exclusions No data were excluded from analyses.

Reproducibility All attempts to repeat the experiment were successful.

Randomization All the samples were randomly tested.

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Blinding There is no blinding data collection in our work as we didn't take the ecological or medicine experiment.

Did the study involve field work? Yes No

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