Abstract
Carbon/alumina (C/Al2O3) composite aerogel with high compressive strength and low thermal conductivity has been successfully synthesized by sol–gel method, followed by CO2 supercritical drying and carbonization. SEM images and compressive Young’s modulus measurements show that the C/Al2O3 aerogel with a molar ratio of Resorcinol/Alumina (R/Al) of 1.0 presents homogeneous pore structures and obtains excellent compressive Young’s modulus up to 90 MPa. Three weight losses regions are observed during heat treatment process, confirmed by TG/DSC measurements. XRD patterns and TEM images indicate that α-Al2O3 phase transition occurs only when heat treatment temperature reaches up to 1500 °C with the adding of carbon source, 200 °C higher than pure Al2O3 aerogel. The as-dried RF/Al2O3 aerogel possesses thermal conductivity as low as 0.025 W m−1 K−1. The thermal conductivities of C/Al2O3 aerogels increase gradually with the increase of heat treatment temperatures, caused by increasing solid thermal conductivity. The thermal conductivities range from 0.033 to 0.049 W m−1 K−1, suitable for efficient thermal insulations uses.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institution (PAPD), the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (IRT1146), Jiangsu Planned Projects for Postdoctoral Research Funds (1402016A) and the State key Laboratory of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering (No. KL11-09). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of these programs. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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Wu, X., Zhong, Y., Kong, Y. et al. Preparation and characterization of C/Al2 O3 composite aerogel with high compressive strength and low thermal conductivity. J Porous Mater 22, 1235–1243 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10934-015-0001-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10934-015-0001-2