Public Funding for Carbon Air Limited

The project will produce proof-of-concept (POC) demonstrator materials of two different types of lightweight, slim, high performance noise-proofing building insulation products; one with thermally insulating materials, the other with thermally conductive properties for use in schemes that take advantage of thermal mass. Carbon Air has developed know-how and IP concerning a family of materials that absorb low frequency noise in thin layers in a much more efficient way than any other conventional material, particularly at low frequencies. These materials can also boost the performance of conventional insulation such as rigid foams, which have poor low frequency noise-proofing characteristics, or provide an acoustic solution for buildings that use exposed thermal mass like stone and concrete to stabilise temperature swings between day and night. Such surfaces cannot be covered by normal acoustic insulation because it would block the necessary heat exchange. As room dividers and acoustic ceiling beams within a space, the developed materials could act as free-standing elements or be combined with materials normally used in thermal mass schemes, such as phase change materials. The project will see a range of substrate and inclusion candidate materials characterised and then combined in a virtual prototyping process using multiphysics modelling to develop optimised designs which will be assembled at large scale and tested thermally and acoustically, for both random incidence sound absorption and transmission loss. The results will form the starting point for collaborative development projects with specialist UK materials producers already identified for outsourced manufacture, and create licensing opportunities with larger rigid foam insulation manufacturers.