Ultralight materials exhibit superelastic behavior depending on the selection, blending, and carbonization of the materials. Recently, ultimate low-density materials of 5 mg/cm3 or less have attracted attention for applications such as sensors, electrodes, and absorbing materials. In this study, we fabricated an ultralight material composed of single-walled carbon nanotubes (CNT) and sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), and we investigated the effect of density, composition, and weight average molecular weight of CMC on elastic recovery properties of ultralight CNT/CMC composites. Our results showed that the elastic recovery properties can be improved by reducing the density of the composite, lowering the mass ratio of CNTs, and using CMC with small molecular weight.

In recent years, the demand for high performance thermal insulations has increased. While foam and aerogels have been researched for high performance thermal insulation, novel material design is required for further improvement. A porous silica has been found to have the potential to form a new thermal insulation material. However, porous silica is a powder and is difficult to form the porous compact. Therefore, we propose a composite insulation of powdered porous silica (p-SiO2), carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and sodium carboxy methyl cellulose (CMC). The fine voids and bulky structure of p-SiO2 greatly suppress gas and solid heat transfer. The composite of CNT can improve the moldability and enhance the mechanical properties. The moldability of thermal insulating materials improved even with the addition of 1 wt% CNT. With the addition of 1 wt% CNT, the increase in thermal conductivity was less than 0.01 W⋅m-1⋅K-1.