The race to develop the best wood based insulation product continues with this exciting new development by a lead team from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Maryland, USA.  

Publishing a research article entitled "Anisotropic, lightweight, strong, and super thermally insulating nanowood with naturally aligned nanocellulose" in the magazine Science Advances, the authors' abstract concludes "The excellent thermal management, abundance, biodegradability, high mechanical strength, low mass density, and manufacturing scalability of the nanowood make this material highly attractive for practical thermal insulation applications."

But how does it compare to other materials?

Insulation product thermal conductivity performances currently range from the common Polyurethane (PUR) and Polyisocyanorate (PIR) products at around 0.025 W/m K, Polystyrene products at around 0.035 W/m K and fibre (including wood) based products at around 0.04 W/m K.  

The new nanowood development achieves 0.03 W/m K, which puts it ahead polystrene and all fibre based products. 

Only the Kingspans and Celotex's of this world perform better than this new nanowood development. 

For comparison the following table is from the BRE Information IP18/11 Paper Natural Fibre Insulation.