Synthesis and thermal evolution of polysilazane-derived SiCN(O) aerogels with variable C content stable at 1600 °C

Ceramic aerogels possess intriguing thermophysical properties which make them excellent candidates for high temperature thermal insulators. However, their properties can degrade at high temperature because of crystallization phenomena or because of densification (causing a sensible reduction of their specific surface area and porosity). The polymer derived ceramic (PDC) route is a relatively new way of developing ceramic aerogels. Several aspects influence the properties of the final product when dealing with preceramic polymers, among them their chemical composition and molecular architecture. In this work, we investigated the possibility of producing aerogels belonging to the SiCN system from polysilazanes mixtures, namely perhydropolysilazane (PHPS) and a methyl/vinyl-containing polysilazane, namely Durazane 1800®, thus changing the C/Si ratio of the amorphous pyrolyzed products. It is shown that the chemical composition of the ceramic aerogel affects the main properties of the porous materials, such as thermal stability and specific surface area (SSA). Results show that the presence of carbon in the aerogels inhibits crystallization of Si3N4 up to 1600 °C in N2 and allows to maintain a SSA of ~90 m2/g up to this temperature.