Recently, at WHZK Advanced Materials Technology Corporation, a scientific research team led by Dr. Chen, director of China Electronic Information Materials R&D Center and senior engineer, made breakthroughs in the preparation technology of aerogels, broke the monopoly of foreign enterprises on this technology, and achieved low-cost preparation of aerogels.
Known as the "smallest density solid in the world", aerogel is recognized as the king of the most efficient thermal insulation and thermal insulation materials in the world. It can be widely used in aerospace, construction, petrochemical, military industry, thermal engineering, thermal equipment, transportation and other fields. The global market space is expected to exceed 10 billion dollars.
In the field of electric vehicles, aerogel can become the "key element" of power battery thermal management, ensuring battery safety with its excellent thermal insulation and thermal insulation performance.
Dr. Chen has been engaged in the research and development of silicon based materials and project management for a long time. He has been granted dozens of patents and won the first prize of Science and Technology Progress of China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation.
Aerogels mainly include inorganic gel, organic gel, composite gel and metallic elemental gel due to their different compositions.
At present, the thermal insulation performance of silica aerogel is the most eye-catching, and the technology is also the most mature. The industrialization development of silica aerogel at home and abroad mostly focuses on the thermal insulation application of silica aerogel gel.
The common drying processes of silica aerogel can be divided into normal pressure drying process and supercritical drying process.
The supercritical drying process for preparing silica aerogels is currently the mainstream process in China. The core equipment is complex, the investment is large, the operation and maintenance cost is high, and the price of silica aerogels is high.
"The preparation of high-quality aerogel by atmospheric pressure drying process has low cost, but it is restricted by foreign enterprises." Dr. Chen introduced that she and her team developed a new method to prepare silica aerogel gel under normal pressure drying, avoiding the technological monopoly of foreign enterprises.
With this process, the production line construction investment is small, the scale is large, and the efficiency is high, which can reduce the production cost by more than 30%. "This is an original scientific and technological breakthrough, and 14 related patents have been applied, and 1 patent has been granted".
WHZK has completed the development and pilot test of the key process for the atmospheric pressure preparation of silica aerogel. At present, it has begun to build an industrial production line. It is expected to complete the construction of the production line and carry out product promotion in 2023.