Recently, a research team from the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering at Zhejiang University successfully developed a novel elastic aerogel material. This material maintains structural integrity even under extreme high-temperature conditions of up to 2000℃ and exhibits excellent elastic recovery capabilities, providing new possibilities for the application of thermal protection technology in harsh environments.
Aerogel is one of the lightest solids known to date, and it possesses excellent thermal insulation properties due to its unique nanoporous structure. However, traditional aerogels generally suffer from issues such as brittleness and fragility at high temperatures, which limit their practical applications. To address this bottleneck, the research team innovatively proposed a preparation process called "graphene oxide-based two-dimensional channel confined foaming method", which fundamentally changes the morphology of the internal pores of aerogels.
Unlike the angular pores in traditional aerogels, the material obtained by the new method features micron-scale dome-shaped curved pore structures, endowing it with unprecedented flexibility and stability. This new type of aerogel, named "Xin Tao", achieves a two-dimensional hybridization of ceramics and graphene at the atomic scale: half is composed of ceramic components, providing high temperature resistance; the other half is a graphene structure, endowing it with elasticity and toughness.
Testing has shown that the Xetao gas gel not only withstands repeated compression without failure at room temperature, but what is even more remarkable is its performance in extreme temperature environments - it maintains 99% elastic strain capacity across a temperature range from 4.2K (-268.8℃), which is close to absolute zero, to as high as 2273K (2000℃), and is almost unaffected by thermal expansion and contraction.
This breakthrough development signifies that the material holds promise for application in engineering protection in extreme thermal environments. For instance, it could enable spacecraft probes to observe closer to the sun, or be utilized in the development of thermal protection equipment capable of withstanding high temperatures near the earth's core. Thanks to its exceptional dual properties of thermal insulation and elasticity, encercer aerogel acts as a "protector" in high-temperature environments, effectively insulating against thermal shock and safeguarding the safety of core components.