Due to the increasing demand of high-performance thermal insulations, the research and industrial interests on aerogels are growing fast. More recently, polymer-based aerogels have drawn much attention, but to date have primarily focused on phenolic polymers. While the species of polymer aerogels are very limited, the drying method has been processed mostly via freeze drying. While this method is more tunable for polymer-based aerogels, the resultant morphology and properties are inferior to aerogels processed using super critical drying (SCD). This work presents SCD process optimization and process-structure-property studies on polymer nano-composite based aerogels. This work investigates the formation of gels via phase separation, which is optimized to retain the three-dimensional network during drying. The mechanisms of solvent exchange and diffusion during gelation and aerogel processing are investigated. Boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) have been chosen as a filler candidate for these composite aerogels due to their lightweight, oxidative, structural, and radiation shielding properties. Current work has shown that the composite precursor gels and aerogels exhibit enhanced mechanical and thermal performance. To this end, a fundamental study regarding these materials is presented and includes multi-scale characterization results and analyses from thermal and mechanical perspectives.

Process-structure optimization of supercritically dried polymer-based and polymer nanocomposite-based aerogels

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.