Earplugs and earmuffs are used widely for hearing protection under noisy environments, and for listening to music and voice. Hearing protection devices with drastic noise reduction are in high demand in high intensity noise environments, such as in machine shops, military shooting range, airport ground personnel, pilots in jet fighters, and personnel on decks of aircraft carriers. However, current acoustic insulation materials, such as acoustic foam, are not adequate for noise reduction. This I-Corps team intends to introduce compact, high performance earmuffs that can insulate from high pitch noise as well as a broad spectrum of hash noise than what can be provided by hearing protection devices currently available in the market.
This I-Corps team has developed porous nanostructured materials with drastic air-borne acoustic attenuation, reaching sound attenuation on the order of 20-60 dB/cm, much higher than the acoustic foam (which gives 10 dB/cm under same testing condition) currently used for earplugs, or earmuffs. The porous nanostructured materials (namely aerogels) developed are ductile, and flexible, allowing it to be used as materials for fabrication of earplugs, and earmuffs. In this project the I-Corps team intends to take the first step towards commercialization by developing prototype earplugs and earmuffs, and conducting market research.
