Scalable and Cost-Effective Roll-To-Roll Additive Manufacturing of Highly Durable and Thermal Insulating Silica-Carbon Aerogel (Final Report)
The research objective of this project is to demonstrate low cost silica aerogel insulation materials with high R-value and low installed price of R7.5/inch, and $0.94/ft2-inch, respectively, which can meet the cost and performance targets of the Department of Energy’s 2030 Building Technology Office Emerging Technologies program. The main tasks of this project include the following three topics: a) Low-cost silica gel precursor: Repeat silica sol gel chemical approach which is reproducible and scalable. Also explore suitability of water-glass on silica aerogel system to further control cost efficiency. In addition, our aim is to synthesize hollow silica using low-cost precursors. Sodium silicate (water glass) was chosen as our silica source because of its availability and low price compared to the other precursors; b) In situ ambient pressure-drying (APD) and surface modification: confirm and improve silica aerogel under cost-effective continuous ambient pressure-drying and investigate silica aerogel performance under time and temperature dependence; c) Roll-to-Roll (R2R) manufacturing with the targeted structure, thermal and mechanical characteristics: evaluate 3D printing with silica aerogel precursor to modify aerogel formation.