A Comparative Thermoacoustic Insulation Study of Silica Aerogels Reinforced with Reclaimed Textile Fibres: Cotton, Polyester and Wool

Silica aerogels are highly porous materials with exceptional thermal insulation performance. They become even more attractive if combined and acoustic is achieved. aerogel composites reinforced fibres an ingenious way to surpass the fragility stemmed from aerogel’s intrinsic porosity, textile good sound absorption materials. Reclaimed a relatively low-cost feedstock were obtained in this work exclusively through mechanical processes wastes, thus promoting concept of circular economy, namely for cotton, polyester wool fibres. These reclaimed used as reinforcement matrices silica sol–gel transformation tetraethyl orthosilicate isobutyltriethoxysilane/or vinyltrimethoxysilane precursors dried at ambient pressure after silylation. cotton had best coefficient (a peak value 0.89), while polyester-reinforced composite exhibited lowest conductivity (k = ~24 mW m−1 K−1, Hot Disk). The better results on achieved by wool-reinforced composites. values less than 27 0.85. Therefore, developed here can be selected or/and barriers choosing suitable type fibre. Their design preparation protocol followed environmental-friendly cost-effective approaches.