Silica aerogel is a lightweight porous foam with excellent thermal insulation. Silica aerogel bulk materials have been used in environmental technology, physical experiments or industrial catalysis.
Another property of silica aerogel material is brittleness, because brittleness easily leads to fracture behavior, so it is difficult to divide into small pieces from larger aerogel blocks, and the technical rejection rate of directly curing gel through small molds is high. These are the main reasons that silica aerogel materials can hardly achieve small-scale applications.
According to the market research of 3D Science Valley and the breakthrough progress of micro silica aerogel manufacturing technology, the research team realizes the high-precision manufacturing of silica aerogel materials through ink direct writing 3D printing technology. The technology opens up new possibilities for thermal insulation applications in many high-tech industries, such as microelectronics, robotics, biotechnology and sensor technology.

Expand the application of aerogel miniaturization
The research team has successfully used 3D printing to produce stable, well-shaped microstructured silica aerogels, with printed structures that can be as thin as a tenth of a millimeter. The thermal conductivity of silica aerogels is just below 16 mW /(m * K), only half that of polystyrene, and even much lower than the 26 mW /(m * K) of the non-flowing air layer.
At the same time, the new 3D printed silica aerogel has better mechanical properties and can even be drilled and ground. This opens up entirely new possibilities for post-processing of 3D printed aerogels.

3D printed aerogel lotus samples are used to prove that fine aerogel structures can be produced in 3D printing.
Using the now patented method, the research team can precisely adjust the fluidity and curing properties of silica inks to achieve 3D printing of self-supporting structures and thin film structures. The lotus-like 3D printed silica aerogel sample in the picture is an overhanging structure. Due to the hydrophobicity and low density of the silica aerogel, the test subject was able to float on the water surface, just like a natural lotus flower.
The new technology also makes it possible for the first time to print complex 3D multi-material microstructures.
Thermal Management Applications
The research team also explored the application direction of this technology. One of the application directions is thermal management.

The miniature custom shield made of aerogel can effectively shield the heat of electronic components. These thermal images show how to shield the heat of the voltage controller on the motherboard (no insulation on the left, aluminum strip in the middle, and 3D printed custom aerogel block on the right (far left); red/purple: high temperature; green/Blue: low temperature).
For example, it can be used for thermal shielding of temperature sensitive components and thermal management of local "hot spots. Another possible application is to shield the heat source inside the medical implant so that the surface temperature of the heat source does not exceed 37 degrees, thereby protecting human tissue.
functional aerogel membrane
3D printing technology makes the production of multi-layer/multi-material combinations more reliable and repeatable, and also makes the fabrication of new aerogel fine structures feasible.
The researchers used a 3D printed aerogel membrane to construct a "thermal molecular" osmotic pump that can operate without any moving parts and only be powered by solar energy. The principle of operation of such osmotic pumps is based on confined gas transport in a network of nanoscale pores or one-dimensional channels, the walls of which are hot at one end and cold at the other. One side of the osmotic pump was doped with black manganese oxide nanoparticles.
air purification
In the application of the above osmotic pump, the research team was able to transform the aerogel into a functional membrane through 3D printing technology. If this application is slightly changed, it can be applied to a wider range of fields.
For example, if the air is contaminated with pollutants or environmental toxins (such as the solvent toluene), the air can be circulated through the membrane several times, and the pollutants are decomposed by the reaction catalyzed by the manganese oxide nanoparticles. Due to its simplicity and durability, this solar-powered autocatalytic solution is particularly attractive in the field of small-scale air analysis and purification.
The research team's proposed ink direct-write 3D printing technology can generate miniature silica aerogel objects from silica aerogel powder slurries in silica nanoparticle suspensions (sols). Due to the high volume fraction of gel particles, the ink exhibits shear thinning behavior. This material flows easily through the nozzle during printing, but increases in viscosity rapidly after printing, ensuring that the printed object retains its shape. After 3D printing, the silica sol was gelled in ammonia gas. In addition, the paper demonstrates the ease with which functional nanoparticles can be combined and illustrates the potential of this technology in areas such as thermal management, micro-air pumps, and more.