Upscaled Preparation of Trimethylsilylated Chitosan Aerogel

Biobased nanofibrous aerogels are one of the emerging topics in materials chemistry because of their unique properties and environmental friendliness, but their practical potential has not yet been fully clarified. For the first step of an industrial feasibility study of biobased nanofibrous aerogel as high-performance thermal insulators, this paper aims to establish a preparation protocol of decimeter-sized monoliths (∼120 × 120 mm2) of cross-linked chitosan aerogels and their thermal conductivity evaluation. In contrast to the well-studied silica aerogel, the chitosan gel has flexible polymeric network and shows a drastic change in volume during the process, which must be taken into consideration for the design of solvent exchange protocol. The obtained aerogel shows a remarkably low thermal conductivity of 16–17 mW m–1 K–1. This value shows that the chitosan aerogel is one of the promising candidates for superinsulation materials in the next-generation thermal energy management.