Ultralight carbon fiber felt reinforced monolithic carbon aerogel composites with excellent thermal insulation performance

Monolithic carbon aerogel composites with low density have been prepared from phenolic resin as a reactive precursor and ultralight and hyper-elastic carbon fiber felt as a soft reinforcement by a low-cost ambient pressure drying approach. During carbonization, the felt shrinks collaboratively with the phenolic aerogel so that the typical shrinkage mismatch between fibers and matrix can be overcome. Therefore, a robust, crack-free and large-size carbon fiber reinforced carbon aerogel composite was obtained, which has a low density (0.16 g cm−3), high compressive strength (0.93 MPa), extremely low thermal conductivity (0.03 Wm−1K−1) and outstanding ultrahigh temperature thermal insulation performance.