Synthesis of carbon aerogels with controlled morphology and pore structure to modulate their bulk density and thermal conductivity via a quick one-pot preparation strategy

How to improve the preparation efficiency and reduced production costs in synthesizing high-performance polymer-derived carbon aerogel materials with ultra-low density and excellent thermal protection properties is currently a crucial research topic that has been plaguing scientists for decades. In this study, we innovatively propose a "one-pot" preparation strategy to synthetize carbon aerogel, which can simplify the complex processes of conventional fabrication methods, greatly shorten the preparation time of phenolic resin-based organic aerogel, and obtain the corresponding carbon aerogels after carbonization. Here, a series of carbon aerogel samples are obtained by regulating the solvent species, and their physicochemical properties such as morphology, pore structure shrinkage, density, and thermal conductivity of these samples are discussed in detail. CA@isoamylol is screened out exhibiting the lowest bulk density (0.15 g/cm3) and thermal conductivity (0.0499 ± 0.0029 W/m·K at 25 °C and 0.1069 ± 0.0090 W/m·K at 1200 °C), which is comparable to the reported values of best-in-class carbon aerogel values, and much lower than the conventional carbon foams. The synthesized CA@isoamylol is promising as a condidate for thermal insulation material. It is expected that the "one-pot" method could alleviate the above-mentioned bottlenecks of the carbon aerogel discipline to produce high-performance carbon aerogel materials with a low-cost and efficient routes.