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Effects of precursor concentration on the physicochemical properties of ambient-pressure-dried MTES based aerogels with using pure water as the only solvent

  • Original Paper: Nano- and macroporous materials (aerogels, xerogels, cryogels, etc.)
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Abstract

This work presents a facile synthesis approach of methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) based aerogels using pure water as the only solvent, and the effects of precursor concentration on the physicochemical properties are investigated in detail. Therein, the precursor concentration has no effect on the chemical composition but causes the denser and slenderer skeletons at the lower precursor concentration and vice versa. At the 14.4 vol% precursor concentration, the MTES based aerogels are made up of slender skeletons, having the minimum density (0.057 g/cm3), the maximum porosity (97.5%), and the low thermal conductivity (29.4 mW/m/K). It further finds the denser and slenderer silica skeletons cause higher compressive strength and higher Young’s modulus. The TG-DSC results indicate the nice thermal stability of MTES based aerogels. In short, this research demonstrates the great competitive advantages of MTES based aerogels in the field of thermal insulation from the view of preparation method, thermal conductivity, and thermal stability.

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Acknowledgements

The authors deeply appreciate the supports from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51904336), the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province (No. 2020JJ4714), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 202501003 and 202045001).

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  1. School of Resource and Safety Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, P. R. China

    Xi Deng, Liling Wu, Yunmeng Deng, Siqi Huang, Mengtian Sun, Xiaowu Wang, Qiong Liu, Ming Li & Zhi Li

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  1. Xi Deng
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Deng, X., Wu, L., Deng, Y. et al. Effects of precursor concentration on the physicochemical properties of ambient-pressure-dried MTES based aerogels with using pure water as the only solvent. J Sol-Gel Sci Technol 100, 477–488 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10971-021-05665-0

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