SILICA-AERO. Production of Lightweight Silica Aerogel Fibers for Excellent Heat Insulating Application

Aerogels are today the lightest solids and the best thermal insulating materials in the world. Silica aerogels are the most common aerogels. On one hand, silica is inorganic, fire proof and thermal stable up to 900 °C; one the other hand, the material is brittle and rigid. Due to their brittleness combined with the ultrahigh porosity of aerogels (over 80 %), silica aerogels are very difficult to process into a product. Commonly lightness is a required characteristic in transport sectors like aircraft, spacecraft or automobile. Due to the vibrations, it is difficult to use aerogels in these sectors. It is already possible to make brittle materials flexible. Glass, ceramic and carbon fibers are nowadays used for several applications in the form of flexible textiles and fabrics. Aim of this paper is to introduce a new developed process for the production of silica aerogel fibers. The fibers have been successfully produced and showed the same porosity and pore structure like in their corresponding bulk material.