Improvement of the Mechanical Properties of Silica Aerogels for Thermal Insulation Applications through a Combination of Aramid Nanofibres and Microfibres

Exploring the Versatility of Aerogels: Broad Applications in Biomedical Engineering, Astronautics, Energy Storage, Biosensing, and Current Progress

Aerogels are unique and extremely porous substances with fascinating characteristics such as ultra-low density, extraordinary surface area, and excellent thermal insulation capabilities. Due to their exceptional features, aerogels have attracted significant interest from various fields, including energy, environment, aerospace, and biomedical engineering. This review paper presents an overview of the trailblazing research on aerogels, aiming at their preparation, characterization, and applications. Various methods of aerogel synthesis, such as sol-gel, supercritical drying, are discussed. Additionally, recent progress in the characterization of aerogel structures, including their morphology, porosity, and thermal properties, are extensively reviewed. Finally, aerogel's utilizations in numerous disciplines, for instance, energy storage, thermal insulation, catalysis, environmental remedy, and biomedical applications, are summarized. This review paper provides a comprehensive understanding of aerogels and their prospective uses in diverse fields, highlighting their unique properties for future research and development.

Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory Model of SoH Prediction for Gelled-Electrolyte Batteries under Charging Conditions

The impact of different charging currents and surrounding temperatures has always been an important aspect of battery lifetime for various electric vehicles and energy storage equipment. This paper proposes a bidirectional long short-term memory model to quantify these impacts on the aging of gel batteries and calculate their state of health. The training data set of the bidirectional long short-term memory model is collected by charging and discharging the gel battery for 300 cycles in a temperature-controlled box and an automated charge and discharge device under different operating conditions. The testing set is generated by a small energy storage device equipped with small solar panels. Data for 220 cycles at different temperatures and charging currents were collected during the experiment. The results show that the mean absolute error (MAE) and root-mean-square error (RMSE) between the training set and testing set are 0.0133 and 0.0251, respectively. In addition to the proposed model providing high accuracy, the gel battery proved to be stable and long-lasting, which makes the gel battery an ideal energy storage solution for renewable energy.