Highly compressible and anisotropic lamellar ceramic sponges with superior thermal insulation and acoustic absorption performances.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 32709868.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-17533-6 and PMC identifier 7382455.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Advanced ceramic sponge materials with temperature-invariant high compressibility are urgently needed as thermal insulators, energy absorbers, catalyst carriers, and high temperature air filters. However, the application of ceramic sponge materials is severely limited due to their complex preparation process. Here, we present a facile method for large-scale fabrication of highly compressible, temperature resistant SiO<sub>2</sub>-Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> composite ceramic sponges by blow spinning and subsequent calcination. We successfully produce anisotropic lamellar ceramic sponges with numerous stacked microfiber layers and density as low as 10 mg cm<sup>-3</sup>. The anisotropic lamellar ceramic sponges exhibit high compression fatigue resistance, strain-independent zero Poisson's ratio, robust fire resistance, temperature-invariant compression resilience from -196 to 1000 °C, and excellent thermal insulation with a thermal conductivity as low as 0.034 W m<sup>-1</sup> K<sup>-1</sup>. In addition, the lamellar structure also endows the ceramic sponges with excellent sound absorption properties, representing a promising alternative to existing thermal insulation and acoustic absorption materials.