The team Beads vs Beats was awarded a grant in the Top Sector Chemistry Student Competition, for a proposal entitled: “Metafoams: a new and effective material for sound isolation”. The team consists of students Sophie van Lange (WUR) and Roel Borgers (TUE), and will be supervised by Maarten Smulders (WUR) and Albert Poortinga (TUE).
In their project a highly efficiently sound-isolating material will be produced, aimed at the blocking of low-frequency sound. This novel material, or ‘metafoam’, will consist of a foamed polymer that encloses heavy beads in its pores. These beads will resonate with incoming sound waves, leading to destructive interference.