Journal
NANO LETTERS
Volume 22, Issue 23, Pages 9290-9296Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c02768
Keywords
Vesicle template; Self-assembly; Silica foams; Energy conservation
Categories
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Research Fund Program of Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Green Chemical Product Technology
- [51573058]
- [GC201818]
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A novel aqueous process was proposed to prepare lightweight aerogel-like silica foams through cast-in situ method and ambient pressure drying. The foams possess low density, low thermal conductivity, and good mechanical properties, making them suitable for thermal insulation in industrial, aerospace, and other extreme environmental conditions.
Silica aerogels have incomparable advantages among thermal insulation materials because of their ultralow density and thermal conductivity, but cumbersome production processes, high cost, and low mechanical stability limit their practical application. In this study, a novel aqueous process to prepare lightweight aerogel-like silica foams (ASFoams) through the cast-in situ method and ambient pressure drying was proposed with multiblock polyurethane surfactant as the vesicle template. ASFoams possess a unique loose stacking morphology of the silica hollow sphere with a 3D network structure as the skeleton, which endues ASFoams with a low density of 0.059 g/cm3, low thermal conductivity of 36.1 mW center dot k-1 center dot m-1, and pretty good mechanical properties. These properties make ASFoams a promising option for thermal insulation in industrial, aerospace, and other extreme environmental conditions. In addition, the micromorphology of ASFoams can be adjusted by changing the reaction conditions, which may provide a facile method for the preparation of a silica aerogel-like foam with adjustable microstructure.
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