Iswara, Subramaniam Griffa, Michele Kaufmann, Rolf Beltran, Mario Huber, Lukas Brunner, Samuel Lattuada, Marco Koebel, Matthias M. Malfait, Wim J. 2019-04-01 Silica aerogels display an ultra-low thermal conductivity (λ) and are used as thermal superinsulators. Here, we study the influence of aging and drying processes on the microstructure and thermal conductivity of fiber-reinforced silica aerogel composites. Glass wool-silica gel composites were aged for variable times, hydrophobized, and dried either at ambient pressure or from supercritical CO2 (scCO2). The X-ray micro- tomographic data display three distinct phases: silica aerogel, glass fibers, and macroscopic pores and cracks. The silica aerogel appears as a continuous medium in the tomograms because the spatial resolution (6–11 μm) is insufficient to resolve the aerogel mesopores (∼0.02–0.10 μm). For the composites prepared by ambient pressure drying, insufficient aging led to prominent drying shrinkage and cracking, and a high macro-porosity, as quantified by 3D image analysis. Insufficient aging also led to an increase in λ from 15.7 to 21.5 mW m−1 K−1. On the contrary, composites that were nearly free of cracks and displayed a constant λ of 16.3 ± 0.8 mW m−1 K−1 could be prepared by scCO2, independent of aging time. The thermal conductivity was reproduced from the macro-porosity to within 0.7 mW m−1 K−1 using simple thermal transport models consisting of thermal elements connected in series or parallel. Our results illustrate the usefulness of X-ray micro-tomography to quantify the 3D microstructure and its effects on the bulk composite properties and the data highlight the importance of aging for the production of low λ aerogel-fiber composites by ambient pressure drying. application/pdf https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/307613 https://folia.unifr.ch/documents/307613/files/lat_eat.pdf https://folia.unifr.ch/documents/307613/files/lat_eat_sm.pdf eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1016/j.micromeso.2018.12.006 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess License undefined Microporous and Mesoporous Materials. - 2019, vol. 278, p. 289–296 info:eu-repo/classification/udc/54 Effect of aging on thermal conductivity of fiber-reinforced aerogel composites: An X-ray tomography study http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501