Aerogel is a highly dispersed solid material, which is composed of colloidal particles clustered together into a nanoporous network structure and filled with gaseous dispersion medium in the pores. Its porosity can reach 80~ 99.8%, the pore size is generally between 1~70nm, and its density is only 2.75 times that of air, which is the lowest density solid in the world today. Aerogel has low thermal conductivity, high temperature resistance, flame retardant, low density, low impedance and other excellent properties, but also has strong waterproof, long service life and other characteristics. In the aerospace, national defense, communications, medical, petroleum, chemical, mineral, rail transportation, shipping, new energy, nuclear power, construction, environmental protection and chemical industry and many other fields contain very wide application prospects.
Silica aerogel insulation performance so far is the best material, its aperture under ordinary conditions of air molecules mean free path, so the air molecules in the aerogel gap approximate stationary, avoiding the air convection heat transfer, the volume of the aerogel is extremely low density and nano grid structure of curved path also block the gaseous and solid heat conduction, The void walls tending to infinity minimize thermal radiation. These three aspects work together to block almost all the ways of heat transfer, enabling aerogel to achieve an insulation effect that other materials cannot match.