Researchers Create Super-Insulating Gel Using Beer Waste

Researchers from Colorado University Boulder have created an insulating gel that could be used to coat the windows of habitats in space. With such a coating applied the humans inside the habitats could trap and store energy from the sun. The gel would trap heat much like a greenhouse stays warm in the winter.

One key attribute of this new gel is that it is "mostly see-through" which means that the gel could be used in windows. Trapping the energy inside could protect the habitats from the significant changes in temperature on the moon or Mars when moving from day to night. The material is an aerogel consisting of 90% gas making the material very lightweight.

To create the material engineers on the project generated crisscrossing patterns of solid material able to trap air inside billions of tiny pores. All that trapped air is what makes the material such a good insulator. That crisscrossing pattern does make normal aerogels look cloudy. The new gel is more translucent and started with common plant sugar cellulose.

The team controlled how the cellulose molecules like up allowing them to orient the lattice-like pattern. Since the pattern is so uniform light can pass through unbothered giving the new gel a transparent appearance. Cellulose required for this project came from beer. Specifically, beer wort a waste liquid made during the brewing process.

Colorado happens to be a mecca for microbreweries, so the team went to breweries in the area to collect tubs of the beer wort. Currently, about two weeks is needed to culture the cellulose. After that key ingredient is ready the remainder of the aerogel fabrication is quick. The finished material is a flexible film that is 100 times lighter than glass and is resistant to heat.

SOURCE: Colorado University