Inspired by the structure of polar bear fur, a team of Chinese scientists has developed a lightweight, hydrophobic and heat-insulating material with a hollow structure. It is expected to meet the special material demands in fields such as aerospace in the future. 
Unlike the hair of humans or other mammals, the hair of polar bears is hollow. This structure can prevent heat from spreading from the polar bear's skin surface to the surrounding cold environment. 
A team of Chinese scientists published a paper in the American journal Chemistry on the 6th, saying that inspired by this, they artificially synthesized a kind of hollow carbon tube aerogel. The inner diameter of the hollow carbon tube is only 35 nanometers, far less than the average free path of air (75 nanometers), which means that the air inside the tube hardly transfers heat, so the material has excellent heat insulation performance. In addition, the three-dimensional network structure of this carbon tube aerogel also makes it have super elasticity, and it can still maintain its structure integrity after being compressed 1 million times under 30% strain. 
Yu Shuhong, a professor at the University of Science and Technology of China and the corresponding author of the paper, said that after long-term evolution, the hollow-structured polar bear hair can reduce heat loss in cold and humid environments and is an ideal model for artificial synthetic insulation materials. The research team will next explore the manufacturing of this material on a larger scale and achieve mass production to promote its application in aerospace and other fields. 
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)