Nanostructured silica used in super-insulation materials (SIM), hygrothermal ageing followed by sorption characterizations

3D multi-scale quantification of industrially relevant ultra-porous silicas by low-dose electron tomography combined with SANS

“…The global structure is highly connected and forms a network from which we tend to observe a typical pattern with a pore size of around 10 nm, in good agreement with the pore size distribution determined by Chal et al [30]. Some larger pores may appear outside the agglomerates (Figure 3g-h).…”

“…drug delivery [26], particle collectors [27], antireflective nanocoatings [28] and so forth. Their chemical properties are also important as they often determine processability [29] and durability [30]. Structural analysis is important in order to p. 4 understand how silica plays a role in applications and enables properties tuning to fulfil specific requirements.…”

Instrumented Indentation of Super-Insulating Silica Compacts

“…We have chosen in this work to maintain limited and similar environmental conditions by working in an ambient environment under controlled temperature and with only small variations in relative humidity. Large differences exist in the hydrophilicity of silica nanopowders, which are related to their processes and possible surface treatments (see Table 1 [5,47]). Thus, an influence of the water absorption on the mechanical properties of compacts is expected.…”

“…The former are synthesized at high temperature, the latter in aqueous solution at a lower price and in larger quantities. The choice of the nature of the silica nanopowder has a major influence on the mechanical characteristics and on the thermal conductivity of VIP [4,5,6]. At a given compaction pressure, PS compacts are denser and therefore have a higher thermal conductivity as compared with FS compacts [7], thus limiting the development of VIP with a core made with PS.…”

Mechanical properties of milimetric silica aerogel particles produced through evaporative drying: A coupled experimental and discrete element approach

“…This treatment partially counters the shrinkage of the gel during the following evaporative drying step [28,29]. The aerogel hydrophobicity is also critical in its end use as a building material for durability reasons, as shown by [30]. Evaporative drying of the gel consists in increasing the temperature above the boiling point of ethanol.…”