Abstract
Nowadays, besides the use of conventional insulations (plastic foams and wool materials), aerogels are one of the most promising thermal insulation materials. As one of the lightest solid materials available today, aerogels are manufactured through the combination of a polymer with a solvent, forming a gel. For buildings, the fiber-reinforced types are mainly used. In this paper, the changes both in the thermal performance and the material structure of the aerogel blanket are followed after thermal annealing. The samples are put under isothermal heat treatments at 70 °C for weeks, as well as at higher temperatures (up to 210 °C) for one day. The changes in the sorption properties that result from the annealing are presented. Furthermore, the changes in the thermal conductivity are followed by a Holometrix Lambda heat flow meter. The changes in the structure and surface of the material due to the heat treatment are investigated by X-ray diffraction and with scanning electron microscopy. Besides, the above-mentioned measurement results of differential scanning calorimetry experiments are also presented. As a result of using equipment from different laboratories that support each other, we found that the samples go through structural changes after undergoing thermal annealing. We manifested that the aerogel granules separate down from the glass fibers and grow up. This phenomenon might be responsible for the change in the thermal conductivity of the samples.
Highlights
A method to decrease the energy use as well as the emission of greenhouse gases is to apply thermal insulation materials. [1,2,3,4] Silica aerogels are mesoporous materials that have very small thermal conductivity (λ, W/mK) [5]
We systematically investigated the influence of different aging and temperatures on the structure and thermal conductivity of glass fiber-enhanced silica aerogel, with 150 kg/m3 density
As the basis of the research, the thermal conductivity measurement results were presented in a previous paper [6] and here, these results will be improved through a deeper engineering analysis of the materials
Summary
A method to decrease the energy use as well as the emission of greenhouse gases is to apply thermal insulation materials. [1,2,3,4] Silica aerogels are mesoporous materials that have very small thermal conductivity (λ, W/mK) [5]. A method to decrease the energy use as well as the emission of greenhouse gases is to apply thermal insulation materials. Aerogel materials are applied as thermal excellent insulations. It has been presented in recent papers that fibrous, transparent, or translucent aerogel-type insulations are some of the most innovative/advanced insulation materials. Aerogel is a porous material with low density, and cells on the nanoscale. It is manufactured from different types of gels by supercritical drying; silica alco-gels are the most widely manufactured, which are most regularly prepared from silica gel [6,7,8,9,10,11]. The main goal of this paper is to present and understand experimental
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