Effect of Titanium Dioxide Particles on the Thermal Stability of Silica Aerogels

oleh: Caide Fan, Jialu Lu, Chengjie Duan, Chengbin Wu, Jiming Lin, Ruoxiang Qiu, Zehui Zhang, Jianming Yang, Bin Zhou, Ai Du

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2024-08-01

Deskripsi

Silica aerogels exhibit a unique nanostructure with low thermal conductivity and low density, making them attractive materials for thermal isolation under extreme conditions. The TiO<sub>2</sub> particle is one of the common industrial additives used to reduce the thermal radiation of aerogel composites under high-temperature environments, but its influence on thermal resistance is almost unknown. Herein, we report the effect of TiO<sub>2</sub> nanoparticles with different crystal phases and different sizes on the thermal stability of silica aerogel composites. By adding TiO<sub>2</sub> nanoparticles, the aerogel can significantly resist collapse at high temperatures (up to 1000 °C). And compared with the rutile phase TiO<sub>2</sub>, the anatase phase TiO<sub>2</sub> shows much higher temperature resistance performance, with shrinkage of only one-sixth of the rutile phase after 800 °C treatment. Interestingly, energy-dispersive spectrometer mapping results show that after 800 °C treatment, silica nanoparticles (NPs) are squeezed out in between anatase TiO<sub>2</sub> particles, which resists the coarsening of silica NPs and ultimately enhances the stability of aerogel composites. The optimal anatase phase TiO<sub>2</sub>-doped silica aerogel demonstrates the integrated properties of crack-free morphology (2.84% shrinkage), low thermal conductivity (29.30 mW/(m·K)) and low density (149.4 mg/cm<sup>3</sup>) after 800 °C treatment. This study may provide new insights for developing oxide-doped silica aerogels with both high-temperature resistance and low thermal radiation.