Halloysite-based aerogels by bidirectional freezing with mechanical properties, thermal insulation and flame retardancy

Halloysite (Hal) is a natural nanotubular clay mineral with the characteristics of low price and easy availability. The aerogels prepared by Hal are low thermal conductivities , good thermal stabilities and low flammability , which have great application prospects in the field of thermal insulation with flame retardancy . However, they typically suffer from inferior mechanical property and difficulty of mechanically resilient or flexible. Herein, aerogels with anisotropic mechanical properties were prepared by bidirectionally freezing aqueous suspensions of Hal with a small proportion of chitosan (CS). The directionally aligned porous structure gave the aerogels prominent strength in the direction of lamellar orientation, and superelasticity in the vertical direction. The Hal-based aerogels showed good performance in the combination of thermal insulation and flame retardancy. The thermal equilibrium temperatures of Hal/CS aerogels at 50 °C and 100 °C are 27.5 °C and 35.2 °C, respectively. They also remained unscathed after 180 s of burning in a candle flame. The present study provided a versatile method for design and fabrication aerogels for high-performance thermal insulation materials and had significance in the high-value utilization of Hal mineral resources .