The research result of the breakthrough material is published in Science.

Aerogels, renowned for their high porosity and ultralow density, have emerged as a class of multifunctional materials with significant application potential, widely employed in aerospace exploration, sensors, thermal management, and chemical catalysis.

However, aerogels prepared by traditional sol-gel methods typically rely on weak connections between zero-dimensional particles, resulting in highly unstable overall structures characterized by significant brittleness and poor elastic recovery capabilities.

Existing aerogels still face challenges in thermo-mechanical stability under extreme conditions, manifested as thermal instability of crystal structures at high temperatures and structural collapse with irreversible deformation under large-strain loading. Achieving aerogel materials that maintain structural stability and exceptional elasticity at ultrahigh temperatures has become a critical scientific problem demanding a breakthrough.

In response, a collaborative team led by Professor Liu Yilun from Xi'an Jiaotong University's (XJTU) School of Aerospace Engineering and Professor Gao Chao from Zhejiang University's Department of Polymer Science and Engineering proposed a novel design strategy for high-temperature superelastic aerogels.

They established multiscale mechanical models for various microstructures, revealing a structural hyperelasticity mechanism regulated by wrinkle evolution during large deformations. Guided by these models, they experimentally fabricated dome-celled aerogels via a confined foaming strategy within two-dimensional channels.

This breakthrough material exhibits remarkable performance: maintaining 99 percent elastic strain across an ultra-broad temperature range from 4.2 K to 2273 K, even after enduring 100 repeated thermal shocks. The research findings were published in the prestigious international journal Science under the title Dome-celled aerogels with ultrahigh-temperature superelasticity over 2273 K.

At room temperature, these aerogels withstand 20,000 cycles of compression at 99 percent strain while exhibiting minimal height loss (plastic deformation less than 3 percent) and low strength degradation (less than 20 percent).

Crucially, the carbide dome-celled aerogels retain 99 percent elastic strain across extreme environments – from deep cryogenic conditions at 4.2 K to ultrahigh temperatures at 2273 K. Furthermore, benefiting from the exceptional stability of their nanoscale layered structure and dome-celled microarchitecture at high temperatures, the carbide aerogels demonstrate outstanding thermal insulation properties.

Even after enduring 10,000 fatigue loading cycles at room temperature and 100 repeated cycles at 2273 K, their thermal conductivity remains ultralow, highlighting exceptional structural stability and deformation resistance.

Remarkably, after 100 thermal shocks at 2273 K, the samples showed negligible morphological changes and almost no degradation in thermal conductivity, offering a revolutionary material solution for highly reliable thermal protection in extreme-temperature environments.