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Updated: Feb 14, 2026

Preparing Silica Aerogel Monoliths via a Rapid Supercritical Extraction Method
Published on: February 28, 2014
Fire-Retardant and Thermally Insulating Phenolic-Silica Aerogels
Zhi-Long Yu1, Ning Yang1, Varvara Apostolopoulou-Kalkavoura2
1Division of Nanomaterials & Chemistry, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Department of Chemistry, Hefei Science Center of CAS, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China.
Abstract:
Energy efficient buildings require materials with a low thermal conductivity and a high fire resistance. Traditional organic insulation materials are limited by their poor fire resistance and inorganic insulation materials are either brittle or display a high thermal conductivity. Herein we report a mechanically resilient organic/inorganic composite aerogel with a thermal conductivity significantly lower than expanded polystyrene and excellent fire resistance. Co-polymerization and nanoscale phase separation of the phenol-formaldehyde-resin (PFR) and silica generate a binary network with domain sizes below 20 nm. The PFR/SiO2 aerogel can resist a high-temperature flame without disintegration and prevents the temperature on the non-exposed side from increasing above the temperature critical for the collapse of reinforced concrete structures.
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