Aerogel-honeycomb composites – mechanically stable insulating materials

Abstract

Aerogels possess remarkable properties including thermal and sonic insulation as well as a low density leading to the development of aerogel composites for applications in construction. Furthermore, when compared to common polystyrene-based insulating materials aerogel composites behave more favorably upon exposure to fire. However, commercially available aerogel composites still suffer from fragility, lack of stiffness, and unpleasant haptic properties. In that context, our present work deals with the development of aerogels that are composed with polyamide-based honeycomb structures. This approach holds promise to yield mechanically stable yet sufficiently flexible aerogel composites that should retain their superb insulating properties and lead to novel materials for construction purposes. Our poster describes the preparation of resorcinol-formaldehyde resins using the sol-gel process. It shows the results of our gelation studies in presence of honeycomb-aramid resin where the concentration of resorcinol, the resorcinol-to-formaldehyde ratio, and the resorcinol-to-formaldehyde ratio were varied systematically. Beside synthetic details the physical properties of the resulting aerogel composites are described, and finally structure-property-relationships are discussed.