What Is a Nano Microporous Insulation Board? A Complete Technical Guide

A nano microporous insulation board is a rigid, high-temperature panel engineered to deliver the lowest thermal conductivity of any commercial insulation product. It is the standard specification behind industrial furnace linings, ladle backup layers, kiln crowns, boiler casings, and aerospace thermal-protective shields. This article is the canonical engineering reference — composition, manufacture, properties, applications, and selection.

Looking for the product itself? See the standard nano insulation board — our rigid microporous board for flat surfaces and furnace linings.

The Composition

A microporous board is built on a fumed silica (SiO₂) matrix. The starting material is fumed silica — extremely fine silica particles with primary particle size 5–50 nm, produced by flame hydrolysis of silicon tetrachloride. The fumed silica is mixed with water and a small percentage of ceramic opacifier particles (typically titanium dioxide or silicon carbide), then pressed into board form. During pressing the silica particles form a three-dimensional network with a controlled pore size distribution peaked at 10–30 nm.

A small percentage of glass fibre or ceramic fibre (typically 5–10 % by weight) is added to provide mechanical strength. Without fibre reinforcement the board would be too brittle for handling and transport; with fibre reinforcement the board reaches a compressive strength of ≥0.35 MPa at 10 % deformation.

Why It Works: The Physics

Three heat-transfer mechanisms operate inside insulation: solid conduction through the matrix, gas conduction through the pore space, and radiation across the pore space. Microporous board minimises all three.

• Solid conduction is reduced because the fumed silica particles only touch at small contact points, limiting the solid conduction path.
• Gas conduction is reduced because the pore size (mean ~ 20 nm) is below the mean free path of air at room temperature (~ 70 nm). Gas molecules collide with the pore walls more often than with each other, suppressing convective / conductive heat transfer through the gas phase.
• Radiation is reduced because opacifier particles (TiO₂ or SiC) scatter infrared radiation within the board, blocking radiative heat transfer.

The result is a board with thermal conductivity 0.020 W/(m·K) at 25 °C — about half that of the best still-air insulation (0.040 W/(m·K)) and a fifth of typical calcium-silicate board (0.10 W/(m·K)) at the same temperature.

Manufacturing Process

Production follows six steps: (1) gel casting — fumed silica is mixed with binders and water to form a slurry; (2) opacifier addition — TiO₂ or SiC is dispersed evenly through the slurry; (3) moulding — the slurry is cast into moulds of the target panel dimensions; (4) pressing — hydraulic presses compact the slurry to target density; (5) drying — controlled drying removes water without cracking; (6) cutting and packaging — boards are cut to size and packaged in vacuum-sealed PE film. The whole process is conducted under ISO 9001 quality management and each lot is traceable to raw-material batches.

See our microporous board product page for grade-specific density and thermal-conductivity values, or our Custom-Shaped page for formed 3D parts, or browse the full range of microporous insulation products.

Key Technical Parameters

• Maximum service temperature: 1000 °C continuous; 1 100 °C short-term peak
• Thermal conductivity: 0.020 W/(m·K) at 25 °C; rises to 0.034 W/(m·K) at 800 °C
• Density: 220–280 kg/m³ (vs 64–200 kg/m³ for ceramic-fibre blanket)
• Compressive strength: ≥0.35 MPa at 10 % deformation (ASTM C165)
• Linear shrinkage: ≤ 2 % after 24 h at 1000 °C
• Standard sizes: 1 000 × 615 mm panels; thicknesses 10/15/20/25/30/40/50 mm; custom sizes available
• Fire classification: A1 non-combustible per EN 13501-1
• Standards: YB/T 4130-2005 (Chinese metallurgical industry standard); EN 13501-1 (European reaction-to-fire); REACH compliant; RoHS 2.0 compliant; asbestos-free declaration

Common Applications

Microporous board is specified wherever thermal budget matters more than first cost. Common applications:

• Industrial furnace backup — behind working refractory in steel ladles, soaking pits, heat-treatment furnaces
• Kiln and crown insulation — cement rotary kiln preheater towers, ceramic kilns, lime kilns
• Boiler casing — package boilers, recovery boilers, biomass boilers
• Petrochemical — ethylene cracking furnace linings, reformer penetrations
• Glass furnace regenerators — checker chamber backup
• Aerospace — thermal-protective panels for re-entry vehicle structures
• Cold-chain / cryogenic — vacuum-insulated panels (VIP) for pharmaceutical cold-chain transport

See our Industrial Applications of Microporous Insulation page for a longer list with case-history numbers.

Selection Guide

Choosing the right microporous insulation product is a function of four parameters:

• Geometry — flat surfaces: standard board; curved surfaces: arc or flexible sheet; complex 3D: formed shape; gap-filling: powder
• Skin requirement — clean-room or food-grade: PE facing; vapour barrier or marine: aluminium foil facing; vibration- or wear-resistant: glass-fibre fabric facing; concealed installation: no facing
• Temperature — most boards share a 1000 °C continuous service limit; cold-chain service (≤ 80 °C) switches to VIP
• Lead time and budget — standard size and grade: stock; custom size or 3D shape: 4–6 weeks

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Request a Quote — Microporous Insulation Data Pack

Standards and Compliance

Nano microporous insulation board from a quality supplier is delivered with multi-standard compliance documentation. The product family covered by this article is certified or compliant with the following industry standards:

• YB/T 4130-2005 — Chinese metallurgical industry standard for microporous insulation boards (the foundation specification)
• EN 13501-1 — European reaction-to-fire classification, A1 non-combustible
• ISO 9001:2015 — quality management system certification covering design, manufacture, and after-sales service
• REACH — Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals compliance declaration
• RoHS 2.0 — Restriction of Hazardous Substances compliance, third-party tested
• Asbestos-free declaration — third-party verified per WHO and OSHA standards
• CE marking — European Union Declaration of Conformity for the relevant product families

Mill-test reports accompany every shipment and include thermal-conductivity verification at four temperature points (typically 200 °C / 400 °C / 600 °C / 800 °C). The reports also document density, dimensional tolerances, and compressive strength for the lot. For tenders and engineering submittals, this documentation is what differentiates a serious supplier from a price-leader with no traceability.

Common Misconceptions

• “Microporous is just fiberglass in fancy packaging.” Reality: microporous board has roughly one-fifth the thermal conductivity of the best still-air insulation (0.020 vs 0.040 W/(m·K) at 25 °C) and one-tenth the thermal conductivity of calcium-silicate board. The mechanism is fundamentally different from fibrous insulation.
• “Microporous board is fragile.” Reality: ≥0.35 MPa compressive strength supports real mechanical load. Microporous board is more brittle than fibrous blanket but holds its own weight and modest compressive loads without problem.
• “Microporous board is expensive.” Reality: per square-metre installed cost is roughly 4× that of ceramic-fibre blanket, but lifecycle cost (15+ years of service with no performance loss) and energy savings typically make it the lower-cost option over a 10-year window.
• “Microporous board is the same as aerogel blanket.” Reality: aerogel blanket is a fibrous product with aerogel particles in the fibre interstices; microporous board is a compressed fumed-silica solid. Both are high-performance but they have different temperature limits, different mechanical behaviour, and different cost profiles.

Working With the Material: Practical Observations

Engineers who are new to microporous board often report three observations during their first installation: the board is heavier than expected (a 1000 × 615 × 30 mm panel weighs roughly 10 kg), the board cuts more cleanly than expected (a sharp utility knife scores-and-snaps a 20 mm panel in two passes), and the board is more rigid than fibrous insulation (it does not compress onto pipes, so pin-and-band fastening is mandatory for curved surfaces).

These are operational consequences of the dense, pressed, low-pore-size structure. The board’s mass is the price of its thermal-conductivity performance — a kilogram of microporous board delivers roughly five times the heat-stopping duty of a kilogram of ceramic-fibre blanket. The clean-cuttability is a benefit — workers can produce installation-ready pieces with less rework. The rigidity is a constraint — pipework and curved surfaces need either pre-formed shapes or layered infill behind a wire-mesh jacket.

Product Range

The board described above is manufactured by Anchor-tech in standard and faced versions: nano microporous insulation board, VIP insulation panels, flexible microporous insulation sheets, custom machined insulation shapes.