1、 The production process tends to mature and the market scale expands rapidly

The density of aerogels is the smallest solid in the world so far, and the density of most kinds of aerogels does not exceed 3mg/cm ³， The density of all carbon aerogel is as low as 0.16mg/cm ³， It is only 1/6 of the air density at normal temperature and pressure. Aeroneneneba gel has many advantages, such as strong thermal insulation ability, light weight, long service life, etc.: (1) The thermal conductivity of aeronenenebb gel can be lower than 0.016W/(m ∙ K), which makes aeronenenebc gel have strong thermal insulation ability. (2) Aerogel is the solid with the smallest density at present. Compared with traditional thermal insulation materials, it can reduce the thickness and weight by 3-8 times while achieving the same thermal insulation effect; (3) Aerogel has a long service life.

The production process of aerogel mainly includes the steps of sol gel, aging, modification and drying. The drying process is crucial to the synthesis of aerogel. At present, the mainstream drying processes include supercritical drying, atmospheric drying, etc. Supercritical drying is to control the pressure and temperature to make the solvent reach its own critical point in the drying process, forming a supercritical fluid, The solvent in the supercritical state has no obvious surface tension, so that the gel can maintain a good skeleton structure during the drying process. At present, supercritical drying is more mature and can produce various high-purity aerogels.

Fig. 1 Aerogel production process

According to the report, the global aerogel market size in 2017-2021 increased from 1.99 billion dollars to 2.47 billion dollars, with a CAGR of 5.55%. It is estimated that the global aerogel market size will reach 3.31 billion dollars by 2025. According to the report, 56% of the downstream demand for aerogels currently comes from oil and gas projects, 18% is used for industrial insulation, 9% is used for building construction, and 8% is used for transportation. By 2026, oil and gas projects in the downstream market demand of global aerogel will be reduced to 47%, building construction will increase to 14%, and transportation will increase to 13%. Therefore, building construction and new energy transportation will become the main consumption drivers of aerogel in the future.

Figure 2 Global scale of aerogel

Figure 3 Demand structure of aerogel in 2021

Figure 4 Demand structure of aerogel in 2026

2、 The demand for new energy vehicles is growing, and the traditional fields still need to be driven by cost reduction

China's aerogel industry started late, but its market size has maintained a steady and rapid growth. The market size has grown from 1.5 billion yuan in 2016 to 3 billion yuan in 2020, with a CAGR of 18.83%. Among them, the market scale of aerogel materials in 2020 is 1.590 billion yuan, and that of aerogel products in 2020 is 1.401 billion yuan.

Figure 5 Scale of domestic aerogel materials/products

Aerogel is the preferred material to solve the problem of thermal insulation of lithium iron phosphate battery in low temperature environment and thermal runaway of ternary battery in high temperature environment. According to the 2019 annual report, each new energy vehicle needs about 2-5 square meters of aerogel composite materials. According to the price of aerogel 200 yuan/square meter, the value of aerogel composite new energy vehicles per vehicle is 400-1000 yuan. If we take the sales of 10 million new energy vehicles in China in 2025, The market size of aerogel for new energy vehicles will reach 4 billion to 10 billion yuan.

In the field of oil and gas pipelines, aerogels are mainly used as pipeline insulation materials. Compared with conventional insulation materials such as calcium silicate, composite silicate, rock wool and slag wool in this field, aerogels have longer service life, less usage, less water absorption and good flame retardancy. High-temperature pipelines of refining and chemical enterprises are usually covered with thick thermal insulation materials, which can help reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions of enterprises. According to the product scheme, the long-distance steam pipeline project with 350 ℃, 4.5Mpa, flow of 80t/h and outer diameter of 325mm is taken as an example. The energy saving rate of the aerogel composite insulation scheme (10mm aerogel insulation layer x2+50mm composite silicate felt x2) compared with 50mm composite silicate felt x3 can reach 31.2%, and the annual energy saving per kilometer of pipeline can reach 3127.6GJ, which can be converted into 172000 yuan at the heat price of 55 yuan/GJ.

Figure 6 Application of Aerogel in Pipe Insulation

Traditional building thermal insulation materials are divided into inorganic thermal insulation materials represented by perlite and rock wool, and organic thermal insulation materials represented by polystyrene and polyurethane. Compared with traditional materials, aerogel materials have a series of advantages, such as excellent heat insulation performance, difficult combustion, difficult water absorption, etc., but the price is still the main factor limiting its promotion.

Figure 7 Application of aerogel in power battery

 
笔记