Tag Archives: sound-absorbing surface

Stifle the noise with seaweed

The claim that most spaces are now designed with sound-absorption in mind seems a little overblown to me but judge for yourself, from a July 14, 2022 news item on phys.org,

From airplanes to apartments, most spaces are now designed with sound-absorbing materials that help dampen the droning, echoing and murmuring sounds of everyday life. But most of the acoustic materials that can cancel out human voices, traffic and music are made from plastic foams that aren’t easily recycled or degraded. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering have created a biodegradable seaweed-derived film that effectively absorbs sounds in this range.

A July 14, 2022 American Chemical Society (ACS) news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, describes the work in more detail,

Controlling and optimizing the way sound moves throughout a room is key to creating functional spaces. Foam acoustic panels are a common solution, and they come in a variety of materials and thicknesses tailored to specific sound requirements. Most of these foams, however, are made from polyurethane and other polymers that are derived from crude oil or shale gas. To avoid petrochemicals, researchers have explored more renewably sourced and biodegradable sound-absorbing alternatives. But many current options are made from plant fibers that don’t effectively dampen noises in the most useful range of sound frequencies, or they are too thick or unwieldy to fabricate. So, Chindam Chandraprakash and colleagues wanted to develop a plant-derived, biodegradable material that would be simple to manufacture and that could absorb a range of sounds.

The team created thin films of agar, a jelly-like material that comes from seaweed, along with other plant-derived additives and varied both the thickness and porosity of the films. After running the materials through a battery of tests, the researchers measured how well the films dampened sound across a range of frequencies — from a bass hum to a shrill whine. To do this, the team created a sound tube in which a speaker is placed at one end, and the test film is fitted over the other end. Microphones in the middle of the tube measured the amount of sound emitted by the speaker and the amount of sound reflected off the film. These experiments showed that porous films made with the highest concentrations of agar had the greatest sound-absorbing qualities and performed similarly to traditional acoustic foams. The researchers plan to explore ways to modify the agar films to give them other desirable properties, such as flame resistance, and will explore other biologically derived film materials.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Agar-Based Composite Films as Effective Biodegradable Sound Absorbers by Surendra Kumar, Kousar Jahan, Abhishek Verma, Manan Agarwal, and C. Chandraprakash. ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2022, 10, 26, 8242–8253 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.2c00168 Publication Date: June 23, 2022 Copyright © 2022 American Chemical Society

This paper is behind a paywall.

Sound-absorbing nanofoam

In these increasingly noisy days (there’s construction going on around me), news of a cheaper, easier way to dull the noise is very attractive. From a June 25, 2018 Far Eastern Federal University (Russia) press release on EurekAlert,

The breakthrough material reduces a noise level by 100% more efficient comparing to standard analogs, cutting the level of noise transmission by 20-22 dB. The new foam reacts to sound waves not only of high but also of low frequencies, which can damage human health. A young scientist from the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) took part in the development.

PARTNERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Alexey Zavjalov, postdoc, researcher at the Academic Department of Nuclear Technologies School of Natural Science, FEFU, worked as a part of the international team of Russian and South Korean scientists under professor S.P. Bardakhanov. Alexey’s research performance led to the creation of nanofoam – the new noise-absorbing composite material. The results of the work are published in ‘Applied Acoustics’.

‘The problem of noise is the problem of modern technogenic civilization. In South Korea, cities are equipped with round-the-clock working stationary and mobile networks for noise levels monitoring. The urbanization level of such territorially small countries as South Korea is much higher than in Russia. However, in our country this problem is still crucial for big cities,’ – explained Alexey Zavjalov. – ‘The development of new noise-absorbing materials is especially interesting for the automotive industry. Modern people spend a lot of time driving cars and the noise level inside the vehicles’ directly determines the quality of life. For East Asian countries, the issue of noise control is relevant for high-speed rail lines.’ Porous materials are excellent sound absorbers but their noise-absorbing properties can be significantly enhanced by nanoporous grit injected into the foam structure and formed internal channels in it. Alexey Zavjalov has developed approaches for saturation of macroporous foam material with nanoporous grit.

HARMFULNESS OF THE LOW FREQUENCIES NOISES.

Along with the rapid development of nanotechnology, there have been many attempts to mix nano- and microsized materials to create a modified material with enhanced strength, elastic, dynamical and vibrational properties. The acoustic parameters of such materials could not be fundamentally enhanced thus far.

Foam materials are most often used for soundproofing purposes. They provide the proper quality at a reasonable cost, but until today have been effective against high-frequency noise only. At the same time, low frequencies can be much more harmful to human health.

Infra- and low-frequency vibrations and noise (less than 0.4 kHz) are most harmful and dangerous for human health and life. Especially unfavorable is their long-lasting impact, since leads to serious diseases and pathologies. Complaints on such oppressions exceed 35% of the sum total of complaints on harmful environmental conditions.

The foam material, developed by Russian and Korean scientists, demonstrated promising results at medium frequencies and, therefore, more specialized low-frequency noise tests are needed.

CHEAPER AND EASIER FOR APPLICATION THAN AEROGEL.

The improved acoustic characteristics of the newest hybrid nanofoam were obtained by additional impregnation of the standard off-the-shelf sound-absorbing foam with porous granules of silica and magnetite nanoparticles. The porous foam was immersed in nanopowder suspensions in the liquid, subjected to ultrasonic treatment and dried.

The nanoparticles granules formed in the result can be compared structurally to a widely known class of materials – aerogel. It has not only excellent thermal insulation properties but also has a good noise-proof. However, aerogels are quite expensive and complex when used in structures. The new material, created according to the scheme developed by the FEFU researcher, is structurally similar to aerogel but is free of such shortcomings as a high price and engineering problems.

COMPOSITE TECHNOLOGY

The mechanism of sound absorption of a new foam is based on the fact that its sound-absorbing surface is significantly scaled due to the presence of a large number of nanopores in the particles injected, as well as the location of these particles in the foam matrix in the form of distinct channels. Nanoparticles dissipate the energy of a sound wave transforming it into heat. The soundproof properties of the material increase.

Scientists found out that the composite structure is most effective for noise reduction. Thin layers of foam impregnated with nanoparticles are connected to each other in a “sandwich”-construction. This design significantly improves the soundproof properties of the resulting material. The outcome of the study also suggests that the more foamy material is impregnated with nanoparticles, the better it’s sound absorption is.

‘In some approximation, any material can be represented as a network of weights connected by springs. Such a mechanical system always has its own frequency bands, in which the oscillations propagate in the system relatively freely. There are also forbidden frequency bands in which the oscillations rapidly fade out in the system. To effectively extinguish the transmission of oscillations, including sound waves, the materials should be alternated in such a way that the fluctuations that propagate freely in the first material would be in the forbidden band for the second layer,’- commented Alexey Zavjalov. – ‘Of course, for our foam material, this idealization is too crude. However, it allows us to clearly illustrate the fundamentally conditioned necessity of creating a “sandwich” structure.’

RESEARCH OUTCOME

The study showed the effectiveness of the method of foams impregnation with nanosilica or nanomagnetite, which form granules up to several hundred micrometers (in accordance with the pore sizes of the modified foam material) and having pores about 15 nm. This small addition provided a more complex and branched 3D network of nanochannels which led to an additional absorption of noise energy.

Due to the method used, the noise absorption efficiency was achieved in the range of 2.0-6.3 kHz and at lower frequencies 0.5-1.6 kHz. The degree of absorption was increased by 60-100% and the sound transmission was reduced by 20-22 dB, regardless of the type of nanofiller.

‘There is room to further improve the sound absorbing properties of the new material for medium and low frequencies using the” active control” strategy’. – Alexey Zavjalov comments on the plans for further development of such an important scientific topic. – ‘First of all, this refers to the materials obtained by using a magnetite nanopowder. Active noise protection systems have long been used in the world. The main idea is to detect the noise acoustic fields “online” and to generate sound waves in antiphase by means of loudspeakers. That allows achieving a significant reduction of noise in a given area. Concerning the nanofoam, it’s proposed to adapt this approach and to actively exert on a material saturated with granules of magnetite nanoparticles by magnetic fields. This will achieve even better noise reduction.’

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Hybrid sound-absorbing foam materials with nanostructured grit-impregnated pores by S.P.Bardakhanov, C.M.Lee, V.N.Goverdovskiy, A.P.Zavjalov, K.V.Zobov, M.Chen, Z.H.Xu, I.K.Chakin, D.Yu.Trufanov. Applied Acoustics Volume 139, October 2018, Pages 69-74
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apacoust.2018.04.024 Available online 23 April 2018.

This paper is behind a paywall.

If you have difficulty seeing the press release on EurekAlert, there is a June 26, 2018 news item on a Russian news site, RSF News and there is an edited version in a June 26, 2018 news item on Azonano.