Nissan showed a new material at this year’s CES trade show, held earlier this month in Las Vegas.

This new lightweight sound-insulating material, known as ‘acoustic meta-material’, is a combination of a lattice structure and plastic film that controls air vibrations to limit the transmission of wide-frequency-band noise (500-1,200Hz), such as road noise and engine noise.

Currently, most materials used to isolate this frequency band consist mainly of heavy rubber board. Nissan’s new material weighs a quarter of these, while providing the same degree of sound isolation.

Moreover, its simple structure means that its cost-competitiveness in terms of mass production is almost the same as — or possibly better than — current materials, and it can be applied to vehicles where the use of sound insulation is currently limited (due to cost or weight).

Nissan (www.nissan-global.com) started its research on meta-material technology around 2008.

At the time, meta-material was used in high-sensitivity antennas applied to electromagnetic-wave research.

Nissan worked to extend the applicability of meta-material technology to include sound waves, leading to the successful invention of acoustic meta-material.

Making vehicles lighter helps to limit the environmental impact of driving, while reduced noise makes driving ‘more comfortable’.