A novel combustion drying technology for in-situ preparation of glass fiber composite SiO2 aerogel thin felt with excellent thermal insulation performance

Glass fiber reinforced composite aerogel felt is an important thermal insulation material, but its thermal insulation performance is often compromised due to the limitation of preparation methods. In this study, the high performance glass fiber composite silica aerogel insulation thin felt was successfully prepared by in-situ sol-gel impregnation and combustion drying process for the first time. Especially, the drying time for the whole procedure is extremely quick, only taking a few minutes. The composite felt shows the characteristics of light weight, porous, hydrophobic, and has good mechanical properties. More importantly, due to the unique composite structure of the prepared felt, it has extremely low thermal conductivity (0.016 W/(m·K)) and thermal stability. The infrared thermal imager further confirmed that glass fiber composite silica aerogel thin felt has excellent thermal insulation ability, and has promising application potential in the thermal management system of power battery. Finally, the preparation process and drying mechanism based on sol-gel impregnation combined with combustion drying technology were discussed. Compared with the common technology, the preparation method has significant advantages of high efficiency and low cost, which offer an innovative technical approach for producing composite aerogel felt.