Silicone-based aerogel raw materials are in sufficient supply and the industry has huge room for development

Airgel refers to a nano-scale porous solid material formed by using a certain drying method to replace the liquid phase in the gel with gas. It can be divided into two categories: single-component aerogel and airgel composite materials. Silicone-based aerogel is a subdivided product of single-component aerogel. It is a solid material with the lowest thermal conductivity and lowest density using inorganic silicon source and organic silicon source as the main raw materials. Silicone-based airgel has the advantages of good thermal insulation performance, long service life, and good mechanical properties. It is widely used in petrochemical, aerospace, industrial insulation and other fields.

The upstream of the silicon-based aerogel industry chain supplies raw materials, including inorganic silicon sources and organic silicon sources. Raw materials account for nearly 40% of its production costs. Functional silanes and silicon tetrachloride are representative products of organic silicon sources. my country is the world’s largest producer of functional silanes. In 2022, my country’s output will reach 498,000 tons, accounting for nearly 70% of the world’s total output. The advantages of raw materials have laid a good foundation for the development of my country’s silicon-based aerogel industry.

The midstream of the silicon-based airgel industry chain is product production, and the sol-gel method is its main production method, including hydrolysis, jelly, aging, drying and other processes. Drying is a key link in the production of silicon-based aerogels and plays a decisive role in its performance, including normal pressure drying, freeze drying, high temperature drying, supercritical drying and microwave drying. The normal pressure drying method is the mainstream drying method for silicon-based aerogels. Silicone-based aerogels produced using supercritical drying methods have better quality, but their production costs are higher and they have not yet been applied on a large scale.

According to the “2023-2028 China Silicone Airgel Industry Market In-depth Research and Development Prospects Forecast Report released by the Industrial Research Center It shows that the downstream of the silicon-based airgel industry chain is in application fields, including petrochemical industry, aerospace, construction engineering, industrial insulation, etc. The industrial thermal insulation field is the largest demand end for silicon-based aerogels. Silicon-based aerogels have thermal insulation, thermal insulation and other properties, and can be used for thermal insulation of various industrial tanks, pipes, and equipment. my country’s aerogel market size will reach 2.36 billion yuan in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 16.3%. As a segmented product of airgel, the market demand for silicone-based airgel is increasingly strong, and its industry development space will be further expanded in the future.

​​​​​China National Chemical Corporation, Chenguang New Materials, Zhongning Technology, Hongbai New Materials, Pan Asia Microtransparent, Jianghan New Materials, etc. are the main manufacturers of silicon-based aerogels in my country. As my country’s leading silicon-based aerogel company, China Chemical’s annual silicon-based aerogel project with an annual output of 50,000 cubic meters has been officially put into operation in February 2022. The company is currently planning the second phase of the project.

          Industry analysts said that silicone-based aerogels, as a segmented aerogel product, are widely used in the field of industrial insulation. Benefiting from the sufficient supply of raw materials and the continuous optimization and upgrading of the industrial structure of local enterprises, my country’s silicon-based aerogel production capacity has rapidly expanded and output has continued to grow. In the future, as technology maturity continues to improve, my country’s silicon-based aerogel industry will develop in a high-quality direction.