In extremely low-temperature environments such as aerospace and polar regions, advanced elastic thermal insulation materials are urgently needed but facing challenges, when traditional elastic insulators are completely “frozen”, lose elasticity...
Organic
aerogels with high strength are attractive for thermal
insulators but are seriously hampered under fire/high-temperature
harsh conditions. In this study, we report a smart temperature-responsive
self-intumescent strategy for organic aerogels driven by in situ carbonization
and self-foaming chemistry. The resultant smart temperature-responsive
aerogel is not active at low temperatures but can intumesce rapidly
to form stable porous carbon at higher temperatures (>300 °C)
to achieve excellent fire resistance and high-temperature thermal
insulation. Especially, the aerogel can smartly real-time expand with
different contents in response to temperature/fire to form different
porous carbon layers, thus resisting the attack of various heat conditions
and exhibiting the best high-temperature insulating performance ever
reported. The corresponding mechanism has been revealed in detail.
This aerogel also exhibits the combined advantages of a high compressive
modulus of 45 MPa, negligible heat and smoke release during fire,
and low thermal conductivity. This novel strategy provides new insights
for the development of advanced extreme-condition insulating organic
insulators.
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