Effect of Coal Tar Pitch on Improvement of Thermal Insulation Performance of Carbon Aerogels Based on Novolac Resin

The current study is based on synthesis a low cost carbon aerogel with improved properties and thermal insulator approach. In this work cheap novolac resin are used as a raw material for producing polymer aerogel by ambient drying method; then the coal tar pitch is added to samples by immerging them in pitch solution. In next step novolac-pitch polymer aerogels is converted to carbon nano-structure aerogels by pyrolysis heat treatment at inert atmosphere. The results proved, nano-structured aerogels with predictable density will be achieved by this method; also by studying on microstructure and morphology of aerogels it founded these aerogels have high porosity, low density(about 0.1-0.4 g/cm3) and high specific surface area (about 600 m2/g). The charring pitch was a lot and using of it made improved thermal properties that resulted in at least 100s delay in increasing temperature in time-temperature history test; as a result a high performance thermal insulator achieved.