The world's lightest solid, aerogel, was first developed by American scientist Kistler in 1931. Our understanding of aerogel is limited to a few specialized fields. Although it can be artificially prepared as early as 1931, the application of the material has not been developed as quickly as imagined. Today, the application of aerogel in the thermal insulation industry is only the downstream base application.
The density of this new material is only 3.55 kilograms per cubic meter, which is only 2.75 times the density of air; The density of pine (500 kg per cubic meter) is 140 times higher. Aerogel particles look like solidified smoke from a distance, but their composition is similar to glass. The granular aerogel can hardly feel the gravity of the Earth's gravity on the object in the hand.

In the insulation materials, the application of aerogel is mainly combined with the insulation material base to form fireproof and moisture-proof aerogel felt, board and paper. The bidirectional material structure can be used to form superior thermal insulation and fire protection characteristics.
Aerogels have developed from the initial SiO2 aerogels into a large family of aerogels. Aerogel according to the appearance can be divided into block, powder, film and other kinds of aerogel, dry gel, frozen gel and so on. According to the different microstructure, it can be divided into microporous (<2nm), mesoporous (2~50nm) and mixed porous aerogel. According to the matrix, it can be divided into inorganic, organic, mixed and composite aerogel (such as fiberglass aerogels). The most common classification method of aerogel is by component, which can be divided into single-component aerogel and multi-component aerogel. One-component aerogels include oxide aerogels, carbide aerogels, nitride aerogels, graphene aerogels, quantum dot aerogels, metal aerogels, polymer-based organic aerogels, biomass-based organic and carbon aerogels, sulfide aerogels, etc.

What is a multicomponent aerogel?
Multi-component aerogel (composite aerogel) refers to an aerogel aerogel composite consisting of two or more single-component aerogels. It is made of glue or reinforced material such as fiber, whisker and nanotube combined with aerogel matrix. Such as organic fiber -SiO2 composite aerogel, etc. Aerogels with different compositions and structures show unique properties and are suitable for specific application scenarios.
The aerogel products we often use for building industry insulation belong to silicon dioxide (SiO2) aerogel, which is also the earliest application and the most mature preparation technology at present.
Aerogel family content is huge and occupies a more important market applications, as insulation materials, insulation applications in addition to building insulation, industrial insulation, but also often used in new energy battery fireproof packaging, high temperature fire insulation and so on. Aerogel also has hydrophobic waterproof function, which can be beneficial to isolate water vapor and reduce the impact of environmental humidity changes on the insulation effect.