Aerogels in action: What can complex three-dimensional aerogel components achieve and how are they manufactured?

Abstract

ecently, interest in aerogels as efficient insulators rose significantly. Industry and users increased their interest in the direct application of aerogels and their composites. Aerogel application, e.g. in thermal insulation, promises potential energy savings based on the outstanding properties of aerogels. However, direct application of aerogels still remains challeng¬ing since dust formation might occur and scaling of the production is still an issue. Besides construction re¬lated applications, aerogels have been applied commercially as insulting material in the automotive sector. The dust formation was described as problematic to handle that could only overcome by housing in vacuum-sealed bags. [1] Within this work we de¬mon¬strate the application of monolithic aerogel composites as thermal insulation and protection of surrounding areas of an ICE exhaust system based on previously published synthesis protocols.[2, 3] Surface tem¬peratures of the whole system were reduced from more than 800 °C to approx. 100 – 115 °C. In addition, temperatures of the exhaust gasses were increased which enables a more efficient. Three dimensional shapes have been realized in order to closely fit the insulation to the ICE structure. For this purpose, complex molds have been produced and the aerogels composites have been realized.