Composite silica aerogels were prepared using sodium silicate and ceramics fibers. The thermal conductivities of these composites were investigated to determine how effective they would be as thermal insulation. As temperature increased to 400oC, the thermal conductivity of these composites only increased from 0.0266 to 0.0572 W/(m·K). This indicates that these composites which have good structural and mechanical properties would be good thermal insulators during thermal processes....
The preparation process of silica aerogels has commonly involved a dangerous supercritical drying step, so work has been done to eliminate this step. This paper discusses the preparation of composite silica aerogels containing silica fibers using a method that excludes the supercritical drying step. The physical and thermal properties of these aerogels were subsequently examined. It was found that the composite aerogels produced by the method presented in the article ...
The authors set out to prepare cellular vitreous carbon (CVC) foams with varying thermal and physical properties. This was accomplished by using tannin-based resin modified by different isocyanates in varying amounts. Three different experimental procedures were used to prepare foams with different physical and thermal properties. Physical properties of the foams studied include density, as well as pore volume, pore size and cell diameter. The transient plane source (TPS) technique ...
The main objective of this research project was to create a material with a very low thermal conductivity at high temperatures, for the conservation of energy in high temperature systems. To accomplish this goal, the researchers incorporated carbon nanofibers into the mesoporous network of monolithic aerogels, with up to a 20 wt.% through an accelerated-gelation sol-gel process. The synthesis process also involved the use of supercritical drying of the aerogels to ...