On December 3, 2025, Hangzhou - In extreme environmental applications such as aerospace, energy storage, and thermal protection systems, breakthroughs in material properties often determine the upper limit of technological development. Recently, Professor Wang Hongjie and Su Lei, a distinguished research team of Zhejiang University, published their research results in Nature Communication, and successfully developed a new type of ceramic aerogel with high strength and super elasticity, opening up a new path for material application in extreme environments.


Although traditional ceramic aerogels have the advantages of ultra-low density, high thermal stability and chemical inertness, their practical application has been restricted for a long time due to insufficient mechanical strength. The compressive strength of most ceramic aerogels is only between several kilopascals and several hundred kilopascals, which is difficult to meet the requirements of extreme conditions such as high temperature, low oxygen or vacuum. The team of Zhejiang University has innovatively designed a "soft hard" two-phase node reinforcement structure to strengthen the silicon carbide nanowire aerogel with pyrolytic carbon and amorphous silicon dioxide, successfully breaking the traditional balance between strength and elasticity.


The experimental data show that the compressive strength of the aerogel is up to 10.9 MPa at 80% strain, the elastic recovery rate is about 90%, and the modulus and energy loss coefficient of the aerogel are superior to those of similar materials. Microstructure analysis shows that amorphous silica uniformly distributes stress to improve loading efficiency, while pyrolytic carbon alleviates local stress concentration. The synergistic effect of the two enables the material to maintain structural integrity even under extreme compression. Further verification through dynamic mechanical analysis shows that the material exhibits stable viscoelastic properties within the temperature range of -120 ℃ to 300 ℃ and at frequencies of 0.1-80 Hz. After 100000 cycles of loading, there is no significant degradation in performance.


"This achievement has solved the 'brittle short plate' of ceramic aerogels in extreme environments." The head of the research team said that this material has passed the extreme condition test of simulating deep space exploration, nuclear energy development and other scenarios, and can be widely used in thermal protection systems, vibration damping insulators, high-temperature aerospace components and other fields in the future. At present, the team is working with multiple aerospace companies to promote industrialization, and it is expected to achieve the first batch of product delivery within three years.