Micron down feather fibers reinforced cellulose composite aerogel with excellent acoustic and thermal insulation

Cellulose aerogel as the third generation of aerogel materials has become a hotspot. However, the poor mechanical property and dimensional stability of cellulose aerogel restrict its application. In this study, the micron down feather fibers (DFF) was used as the reinforcing material to prepare the cellulose composite aerogels by dispersion DFF in the carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) matrix. The prepared CMC/DFF composite aerogel with low density (0.0389–0.0428 g/cm 3 ) and high porosity (about 97%). The effects of down fiber mass fraction on the mechanical and insulation properties of cellulose composite aerogel were studied. The addition of down feather fibers in the CMC aerogels could improve the mechanical property by increasing the compressive stresses at the 80% compressive strain about 75%. The CMC/DFF composite aerogels also could obtain excellent acoustic and thermal insulation properties with the sound absorption coefficient of 0.991 and thermal conductive of 0.06012 W/mK. The reinforcing mechanism of down fiber on cellulose aerogel was studied. The improvement of mechanical property of CMC aerogels by down feather fibers was due to the physical reinforcement by broadening the layers space of composite aerogels and the chemical reinforcement by forming the cross-linking system with CMC matrix and DFF through glutaraldehyde. Therefore, this research provides a novel strategy for preparation of cellulose composite aerogels with excellent acoustic and thermal insulation, and reinforced mechanical property by using the waste bio-based micron down feather fibers.