Superhydrophobic cement with hierarchically tunable pore structure by additive manufacturing towards super sound absorption

Noise pollution as a form of environmental problem can have significant negative impacts on human health and the economy. To address this issue, a variety of noise-reduction construction materials have been developed. However, most present noise reduction materials suffer from a narrow absorbing band due to the simple pore structure which restricts their ability to absorb sound energy across a wide frequency range. Here, we demonstrate a hydrogel templating method and create hierarchically structured cement-based materials with tunable pore sizes by means of additive manufacturing. The introduction of this hierarchically tunable structure with micro-nano pores generated by cement hydration contributes to the formation of multi-scale pores (micro-, meso- and macropores), which achieves a sound absorption coefficient of 0.89 at 1000 Hz and ensures broadband acoustic absorption performance (noise reduction coefficient of 0.54, around 50 % improvement compared to traditional construction sound absorption materials). Meantime, this lightweight material has good compressive strength (1.31 MPa) and superhydrophobicity (water contact angle of 152.5°), together with thermal conductivity (0.088 W m−1 K−1) and excellent fire resistance. This study provides a new approach for designing cement-based materials with super sound absorption. •Noise pollution as a form of environmental problem can have significant negative impacts on human health and the economy. To address this issue, a variety of noise-reduction construction materials have been developed. Here, we demonstrate a hydrogel templating method and create hierarchically structured cement-based materials with tunable pore sizes by means of additive manufacturing. The introduction of this hierarchically tunable structure helps to form multi-scale pore sizes (micro-, meso- and macro-pores), which achieves a sound absorption coefficient of 0.89 at 1000 Hz and ensures broadband acoustic absorption performance (noise reduction coefficient of 0.54, around 50 % improvement compared to traditional construction sound absorption materials). Meantime, this lightweight material has good compressive strength (1.31 MPa) and superhydrophobicity (water contact angle of 152.5°), together with thermal conductivity (0.088 W m−1 K−1) and excellent fire resistance. This study provides a new approach for designing cement-based materials with super sound absorption.