Macroporous polyimide aerogels: a comparison between powder microparticles synthesized via wet gel grinding and emulsion processes

It is noteworthy to mention that synthesizing the polyimide aerogel powder, which is carried out in this study, benefits from two advantages: (i) the powder particles can be used for some specific applications where the monolith is not suitable and (ii) there is a possibility to investigate how a polyimide aerogel monolith can be made through the polyimide powder to reduce its cost and cycle time. In this study, two straightforward methods, wet gel grinding and emulsion, are introduced to prepare polyimide aerogel powders using ambient pressure drying. The microscopic properties of interest, including skeletal and porous structures, microparticle size and assembly, combined with macroscopic properties such as thermal stabilities and conductivities (0.039 W/m·K), confirm that the fabricated microparticles with a size in the range of 7-20 μm and porosity in the range of 65-85% are thermally stable up to 500 °C.