The aerogel industry has risen against all odds, and the domestic industry has continuously paid attention to it and developed rapidly. In 2016, Aspen Aerogels filed a Section 337 investigation application with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), claiming that products from two Chinese companies infringed its patent rights related to composite aerogel insulation materials and manufacturing methods, and requested the ITC to issue a general exclusion order (or limited exclusion order) and a cease and desist order. In 2018, the ITC made a final ruling on the Section 337 investigation of aerogel thermal insulation composite materials and their manufacturing processes: it ruled that the two Chinese companies had infringed intellectual property rights. This investigation incident has caused the domestic aerogel industry and researchers to attach great importance to aerogel patent property rights.
After 2010, the number of patents and applicants grew rapidly. From the patent search data, the number of new applicants in aerogel patent applications has increased rapidly year by year, and a large number of new applicants have poured into the aerogel field every year. From the ranking of domestic aerogel patent applicants, two-thirds of the top 20 are universities and research institutes, while there are relatively few corporate applicants, and the average number of patent applications is less than 50, and the number of authorized inventions is even less. From the technical direction of invention patents, it is currently mainly concentrated on aerogel preparation technology and equipment, which is also the direction that needs to be focused on for the industrialization of aerogels. From the perspective of domestic aerogel patent applications, the aerogel industry is currently in the early stages of industrialization, and a large number of companies and R&D institutions have already entered this field.
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Policy support has gradually become clear, and aerogel promoters have emerged frequently. In the 250th issue of the top international authoritative academic journal Science, aerogel was listed as one of the top ten popular science and technology, calling it a multifunctional new material that can change the world. In 2014 and 2015, the National Development and Reform Commission listed aerogel materials in the "National Key Energy-Saving and Low-Carbon Technology Promotion Catalog" for two consecutive years, and began the initial promotion and application of aerogel materials. In June 2018, aerogel was included in the emerging building materials industry. In September of the same year, the first national standard for aerogel materials was released. In December 2019, the National Development and Reform Commission issued a document to encourage aerogel energy-saving materials. In November 2020, the "Technical Standard for Aerogel Thermal Insulation Coating Systems" was put into use, which is conducive to standardizing the application of aerogel thermal insulation coatings in construction projects and provides technical guarantees for the design, construction and acceptance of aerogel applications in new construction, expansion and renovation of existing buildings in the construction field.
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In September 2020, President Xi Jinping delivered a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, stating that China's carbon dioxide emissions will strive to peak before 2030 and strive to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. This commitment means that future carbon emissions need to be reduced by more than 90% compared to the current level, and the development of emerging materials such as aerogels conforms to the trend. According to the evaluation of China Petroleum Pipeline Technology Research Center, taking the insulation application of 350℃ steam pipeline as an example, compared with traditional insulation materials, the insulation thickness of aerogel is reduced by 2/3, energy consumption is saved by more than 40%, and carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced by 125 tons per kilometer of pipeline per year.
With the increasing number of companies entering the aerogel industry, the continuous expansion of product applications, the continuous expansion of market scale, the acceleration of technology research and development, and the significant reduction of product prices, the leading companies in the industry have entered a stage of rapid growth. At present, no domestic company has formed a stable leading position. Companies that master low-cost core technologies and certain market resources will gain huge development space, and the entire industry will enter a window period of rapid development.