Polysaccharide-based aerogels for thermal insulation and superinsulation: An overview

Fangxin Zou; Tatiana Budtova

doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2021.118130

Polysaccharide-based aerogels for thermal insulation and superinsulation: An overview

Carbohydr Polym. 2021 Aug 15:266:118130. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2021.118130. Epub 2021 Apr 28.

Authors

Fangxin Zou¹, Tatiana Budtova²

Affiliations

¹ MINES ParisTech, PSL Research University, Center for Materials Forming (CEMEF), UMR CNRS 7635, CS 10207, 06904 Sophia Antipolis, France.
² MINES ParisTech, PSL Research University, Center for Materials Forming (CEMEF), UMR CNRS 7635, CS 10207, 06904 Sophia Antipolis, France. Electronic address: Tatiana.budtova@mines-paristech.fr.

PMID: 34044946
DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2021.118130

Abstract

To reduce energy losses due to the insufficient thermal insulation is one of the current "hot" topics. Various commercial porous materials are used with the best conductivity around 0.03-0.04 W/(m·K). Aerogels are the only known materials with "intrinsic" thermal superinsulating properties, i.e. with thermal conductivity below that of air in ambient conditions (0.025 W/(m·K)). The classical thermal superinsulating aerogels are based on silica and some synthetic polymers, with conductivity 0.014-0.018 W/(m·K). Aerogels based on natural polymers are new materials created at the beginning of the 21st century. Can bio-aerogels possess thermal superinsulating properties? What are the bottlenecks in the development of bio-aerogels as new high-performance thermal insulationing materials? We try to answer these questions by analyzing thermal conductivity of bio-aerogels reported in literature.

Keywords: Alginate; Cellulose; Chitosan; Density; Pectin; Specific surface area; Starch; Thermal conductivity; Thermal insulation.