Aerogel additive manufacturing

A printing capability for gels and aerogels, with great replication fidelity at 10-1000 µm length scale, creates the possibility for spatially varying aerogel compositions and functions and enables a breakthrough in a technological adoption of aerogels for multi-functional assembly and miniaturization applications. At Empa, we developed a direct ink writing protocol to print aerogel objects based on custom-tailored precursors systems [1]. Functional (nano)particles or various polymers are easily incorporated. The method enables the production of miniaturized objects with outstanding shape fidelity.

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The printed aerogel can be pure silica, pure polymers, or hybrids with tailored compositions and functions, with an excellence performance due to the intrinsic aerogel properties (e.g. equivalent SBET and λ of 751 m2/g, 15.9 mW∙m-1∙K-1 for printed silica aerogels). We demonstrated proof of concepts for additive manufacturing of a variety of material systems, including silica, alumina, polyimide, nanocellulose aerogel materials.

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[1] S. Zhao et al., Additive manufacturing of silica aerogels. Nature, 2020, 584 (7821):387-392.
Dr. Shanyu Zhao

Dr. Shanyu Zhao
Group leader in Functional Aerogel Materials Group

Phone: +41 58 765 4244