Heat-Treated Aramid Pulp/Silica Aerogel Composites with Improved Thermal Stability and Thermal Insulation

In this work, we prepared heat-treated aramid pulp/silica aerogel composites (AP/aerogels) and investigated in detail the feasibility of improving thermal stability and thermal insulation via tailored heat treatment. The microstructure and FTIR spectra reveal that AP/aerogels are formed by a physical combination of the silica aerogel matrix and aramid pulps. When the heat treatment temperature increases, the density slightly decreases and then increases to the maximum due to the significant volume shrinkage. The pyrolysis of aramid pulp and the collapse of silica skeletons occur during heat treatment; nevertheless, the typical structures of AP/aerogels do not change significantly. It is also found that both the hydrophobicity and the thermal insulation decrease with the increasing heat treatment temperature. We note that when the heat treatment is at 600 °C, the AP/aerogel still maintains a low density of 0.19 g/cm³ and a contact angle of 138.5°. The thermal conductivity is as low as 26.11 mW/m/K, measured using the transient hot wire method. Furthermore, the heat-treated AP/aerogels can avoid heat shock and possible thermal hazards during practical thermal insulation applications. The onset temperatures of the thermal decomposition of AP/aerogels increase from 298.8 °C for an untreated one to 414.7 °C for one treated at 600 °C, indicating that the thermal stability of AP/aerogels is improved significantly. This work provides a practical engineering approach to expand the thermal insulation applications of silica aerogel composites.