Replies

1. GBA Editor
   Martin Holladay | Mar 15, 2018 05:52am | #1

   Alan,
   Thanks for the link. Scott Gibson, our news editor, may be writing a story on this development.

2. 
   NormanWB | Mar 15, 2018 07:19am | #2

   Being from the south, I am very interested in the critter and varmit aspects.

3. 
   charlie_sullivan | Mar 15, 2018 08:18am | #3

   I read the actual scientific article. It's an interesting material. The process for making it is a lot like papermaking--removing the lignin chemically--except that the cellulose isn't ground up. On the one hand, that means that aspects of the process have been proven at scale, but on the other hand, it might be a lot slower to remove the lignin without grinding it up, and papermills aren't exactly environmentally benign. At least the good modern papermills contaminate water and air a lot less than the old ones did.

   The strength is a little better than the competition, such as compacfoam and foamglas, but the moisture and rot resistance is certainly much less than those materials, so the particular applications might be different. I could see it being used in a window mounting assembly, for example, but only if there is an excellent flashing system.

   The low emissivity is only for the solar spectrum, not for thermal radiation, so that property isn't useful in the way the cleantechnica article discusses. It's a little hard to figure out when that would be useful--it would have to be exposed directly to the sun for it to matter. It's not like it would work as a roofing material, and it's not that special a property--you can buy white paint easily enough.

   In the discussion at Reddit the focus seemed to be on its likely flammability. I'm not sure whether that could be mitigated with borates as with other kinds of cellulose insulation without filling in the pores and degrading its insulation properties.

4. 
   AlanB4 | Mar 15, 2018 04:02pm | #4

   @ Charlie
   That was my thought to, i have not read the paper but more then just R value matters, resistance to rot/fire, if it biodegrades while in use thats not good, moisture resistance and so on matter immensely.