Thermal insulation properties of Ce-Zr oxide ceramic fiber aerogels prepared via solution blow spinning and pyrolysis

In this paper, Ce-Zr oxide ceramic fiber aerogels (CZOf) with effective thermal insulation properties were successfully prepared by a simple two-step method of solution blow spinning and pyrolysis. In the spinnable precursor cerium-zirconium carboxylate, the organic carboxylic acid ligands and metal inorganic salts enhanced its structural stability through coordination interactions. The effect of thermal treatment temperature and Ce doping amounts on the crystal structure of CZOf were analyzed based on XRD. At the same time, the microstructures of the CZOf heat treated at different temperatures were analyzed by SEM in detail. In addition, CZOf exhibited a compressive stress of 24.9 kPa under 80 % compressive strain, and still showed a compressive stress of 20.2 kPa after 20 compression cycles. The room-temperature thermal conductivity of CZOf was in the range of 31.4–38.3 mW m −1  K −1 . The CZOf with a thickness of 10 mm could reduce the hot surface temperature from 1200 °C to about 210.5 °C after 10min, demonstrating excellent thermal insulation performance.