Postdoctoral fellowship at CEMEF: Elaboration and study of superinsulating composite materials with natural fibres.

Description

The improvement of the properties of insulating materials for energy saving in buildings is a worldwide demand and represents a great challenge. One of the ways is to improve the thermal resistance of the insulation layer integrated in the building envelope without increasing the thickness of the envelope itself. AEROFIBRES project concerns materials development in this direction. The overall objective of the present project is to elaborate classical aerogels and ambient-dried aerogels for this application. Silica-based aerogels are the best known thermal superinsulating materials but are still mechanically very fragile.
The goal of the present work is to mechanically reinforce them without losing their very low level of thermal conductivity, and this may be done by introducing finely structured cellulosic reinforcing fillers in the silica matrix.
The post-doctoral work will concern natural fibres pre-treatment, sol formulation, gel synthesis, drying and characterisation of nanostructured silica-polysaccharides composite aerogels in order to create new porous and light materials presenting very low thermal conductivity (i.e. λ < 0.020 W/(m.K) in room conditions) together with satisfactory mechanical properties for building application.
The post-doctoral researcher will work in a team from two research Centres of MINES ParisTech, Centre for processes, renewable energy and energy systems (PERSEE) and Centre for Material Forming (CEMEF), both located in Sophia Antipolis, France. PERSEE is an expert in aerogels in general and silica aerogels in particular, and CEMEF is an expert in polysaccharides with recently developed cellulose and pectin aerogel-like materials, so-called Aerocellulose and Aeropectin, respectively.

Nr of positions available : 1