Innovative MOCHI Insulation Proves You Can Actually Hold Heat in Your Hands

Photo credit: Glenn Asakawa/CU Boulder
Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have developed a novel material that can affect how humans deal with heat simply by applying it to everyday surfaces such as windows. Physicists led by Ivan Smalyukh developed something dubbed MOCHI, which stands for Mesoporous Optically Clear Heat Insulator. MOCHI is a silicone-based gel that you may apply to a glass surface in the form of a thin sheet or even a slab.

More than 90% of MOCHI is essentially just air, which is trapped in a very precise network of extremely tiny pores, each smaller than a single human hair (imagine many, many times smaller). Heat travels through the air as molecules collide and transfer energy. These crashes occur frequently while you are out in the open. However, there is just not enough space inside MOCHI’s extremely narrow pores for this to occur efficiently. Instead, molecules bounce off the pores’ walls, significantly slowing heat transfer. A sheet only 5 millimeters thick can block enough heat to allow you to hold a flame right up against your hand without feeling it.

Of course, classic aerogels are also excellent at trapping air pockets. In fact, NASA relies on them to prevent the equipment on their Mars rovers from freezing. However, the trouble with those aerogels is that they have pores all over the place, scattering light and giving the appearance of being buried in a layer of frozen smoke. MOCHI, on the other hand, organizes its pores with near-perfect accuracy, so it barely reflects 0.2 percent of the light that touches it. So, when you treat a window with MOCHI, the views through it remain crystal clear.

Windows are a major weak point in most buildings because they allow a large amount of heat to leak in or out, which is one of the main reasons why 40 percent of global energy is used to heat and cool buildings. If you slap on a MOCHI sheet, they should be able to significantly reduce that loss, keeping the inside of the building nice and comfortable regardless of the weather outside – all without having to turn up the heating or air conditioning.

MOCHI production begins with the combination of a few surfactants and a liquid silicone solution – it’s a straightforward process. First, you cause the surfactant molecules to clump together into sticky threads. The silicone then bonds to the threads, and with a little extra processing, you can create a full network of channels. According to researchers, the inside resembles a complex network of pipes, but it is a well-engineered maze that effectively keeps heat out.

Of course, the present lab methods are clumsy, but the materials required are all quite conventional and inexpensive. If you can streamline the process, it may get to market a lot quicker. In fact, experts believe that MOCHI has a wide range of possible applications beyond windows, such as lightweight apparel, space shelters, or devices that are particularly effective at trapping solar heat. They’ve even got postdoctoral researchers Eldho Abraham and Taewoo Lee displaying sheets of MOCHI that are so clear they can hardly be seen against a plastic background.

The good news is that MOCHI appears to be fairly durable once applied, as it resists wear and tear and continues to perform well. If a large number of people start using it, it may soon add up to significant energy savings, relieving pressure on power systems and lowering heating and cooling prices for both homes and offices. Ivan Smalyukh thinks it’s absurd that we can’t merely make indoor rooms comfortable without using a lot of energy, especially while the weather outside is chaotic. MOCHI solves this problem by transforming buildings’ key weak points, the windows, into effective solid barriers against undesired heat transfer.
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