About FiReFoam

From an early introduction in aerospace, military and sports materials, glass fiber and carbon fiber composites are now rapidly expanding to automotive and transport applications. However, current materials are petroleum-based, structured at the microscale and have insufficient fire-retardant properties. Seeking to drastically improve the mechanical and functional properties by reducing the size of the reinforcing particles and fibers has attracted a significant interest ever since Toyota introduced nanostructured composites in the 1990’s. However, realization of the great promise of nanocomposites has been slow, partly due to high cost of components such as carbon nanotubes, but also because of the difficulty to disperse nanoparticles in polymer matrices processed by melt processing or thermoset curing.

We address the shortcomings with respect to performance, and use of renewable material by focusing on industrially relevant colloidal processing concepts and low cost nanosized components such as cellulose nanofibrils (NFC) and exfoliated clay platelets (montmorillonite, MTM). The forest industry is currently developing the technology and supply of NFC fibrils, in order to find new markets. These forms of nanostructured materials can be used in new applications since clay nanoplatelets and NFC together with e.g. MTM can provide a much extended property range (Berglund et al 2010). These forms of nanostructured materials have the potential to be used in new applications in the transport and building materials area by providing better properties through tailored structures, outlined in the table below.