Graphene enhanced pre-casted cement wall with insulation function

Important results from the project

The purpose is to use graphene foam in a new way to improve the sound and heat insulation in traditional concrete sandwich walls in the building application. By introducing graphene foam into cement, we want to see if it can improve sound and mechanical properties without losing other performance of the concrete. We have compared different samples with different densities and conducted mechanical and sound absorption studies of graphene foam concrete samples. The sound insulation effect up to 20% was realized compared to concrete without the graphene materials.

Expected long term effects

We developed graphene foam enhanced cement concrete structures regarding its sound absorption and mechanical performance in cement mixtures. A 20% of noise reduction was achieved using graphene foam-cement samples containing 50% of graphene foam as compared to the reference samples. The presence of graphene foam creates a new and larger interconnecting porous hollower network between the layers of the cement contributing to the sound absorption. The result indicates the future possibilities to use graphene foam for sound insulation and other building applications.

Approach and implementation

We produced graphene foam (GF) via graphite oxidation route based on modified Hummer´s process followed by freeze-drying and characterized via optical and electron microscopy. Further, we fabricated GF enhanced concrete blocks and examined compression and sound insulation (according to ISO 10534 standard) behavior. The concrete blocks containing 50% GF shows a 20% of noise reduction compared to the reference samples due to presence of new and large interconnecting porous hollow network showing future possibilities to use GF for building sound insulating applications.