Effect of Slurry Dispersion on Properties of Silica Fiber Based Thermal Insulation Materials

• Published in: IOP conference series. Materials Science and Engineering 2019-11, Vol.678 (1), p.12036
• Main Authors: Xing, Zhengpeng, Sun, Chenggong, Jing, Zhao, Cao, Junchang, Cheng, Honghao, Tang, Jianxin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aqueous solutions; Ceramic fibers; Dispersants; Dispersion; Homogeneous structure; Insulation; Raw materials; Silicon dioxide; Slurries; Thermal insulation
• ISSN: 1757-8981; 1757-899X
• DOI: 10.1088/1757-899X/678/1/012036

Short silica fibers are prone to conglomerate in aqueous medium, which means that dispersity and suspension stability show key effect on the uniformity of ceramics with silica fibers as raw materials. In this work, various parameters including pH values, dispersants and dispersing approaches, were systematically studied to investigate the effect of slurry dispersion on properties of thermal insulation materials with silica fibers as matrix. Moreover, the novel composite dispersants were creatively introduced in this work and the corresponding synergetic dispersion mechanism was investigated as well. Fiber slurries with optimized dispersing and suspension properties was obtained when pH values were set as 4, the content of R type dispersant was adjusted to 0.12% and the addition of PEO was fixed at 0.04%. After settling for 360s, no obvious agglomeration could be found. Rigid thermal insulation materials with homogeneous structure and high performance were obtained with conditions mentioned above, which can be expected to further expand the application of short silica fibers.