A Stiff, Tough, and Thermally Insulating Air- and Ice-Templated Plant-Based Foam

By forming and directionally freezing an aqueous foam containing cellulose nanofibrils, methylcellulose, and tannic acid, we produced a stiff and tough anisotropic solid foam with low radial thermal conductivity. Along the ice-templating direction, the foam was as stiff as nanocellulose-clay composites, despite being primarily methylcellulose by mass. The foam was also stiff perpendicular to the direction of ice growth, while maintaining lambda(r) < 25mWm(-1) K-1 for a relative humidity (RH) up to 65% and <30 mW m(-1) K-1 at 80% RH. This work introduces the tandem use of two practical techniques, foam formation and directional freezing, to generate a low-density anisotropic material, and this strategy could be applied to other aqueous systems where foam formation is possible.