Nanoengineering Porous Silica for Thermal Management
Lu An, Massimigliano Di Luigi, Donald Petit, Yong Hu, Ying‐Jie Chen, Jason N. Armstrong, Yuguang Li, Shenqiang Ren
Abstract
Thermal insulation of solid materials originates from the nanoscale porous architectures to regulate thermal management in energy-critical applications from energy-efficient buildings to heat-sensitive energy devices. Here, we show nanoengineering of porous silica materials to control the architecture transition from mesoporous to nanocage networks. A low thermal conductivity of such a porous silica network is achieved at 0.018 W/(m K) while exhibiting a porosity of 92.05%, specific surface area of 504 m2/g, and pore volume of 2.37 cm3/g after ambient pressure drying. Meanwhile, the crosslinking of the porous silica and ceramic fiber frameworks show a tensile Young’s modulus of 2.8 MPa while maintaining high thermal insulation, which provides an effective thermal runway mitigation strategy for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. The nanoengineering strategy reported here would shed light on achieving superthermal insulation of nanostructures for energy-critical applications.