Aerogel Blanket vs Panel vs Powder: How to Pick the Right Form
The first fork in an aerogel purchase is not which supplier, but which form. A blanket, a rigid panel, and a bag of powder are not three prices for the same material. They install differently, they do different jobs, and they come from partly different sets of suppliers. Choose the form your application needs, then shortlist within it.
In the AerogelHub directory, 23 suppliers offer powder, 22 offer panels, and 21 offer blankets, with 8 offering coatings, 6 particles, and 4 granules. Here is what each form is for.
What each form does
Blanket. Flexible aerogel held in a fiber batting. It bends around pipe, tank, valve, and any curved or irregular surface, and you cut it to fit on site. This is the workhorse of oil and gas and industrial insulation, and the form most retrofit jobs reach for. 21 suppliers list it.
Panel or board. Rigid, and sometimes sold as a rigid aerogel sheet. It suits flat surfaces, walls, facades, and anywhere you want stiffness or a clean flat face, including battery modules. It will not wrap a curve. 22 suppliers list it.
Powder, particle, or granule. Not an installed product. This is a feedstock you blend into a coating, plaster, render, or composite, or pour as a loose fill. You are buying an ingredient, not a finished insulation. 23 suppliers list powder, the single most common form in the directory.
Coating. Sprayed or troweled onto a surface as a thin insulating layer. 8 suppliers list it.
Do not compare across forms on price
A square meter of blanket and a kilogram of powder are priced in different units for different jobs. A cheap powder does not make a cheaper blanket. It is a separate purchase that needs formulating, mixing, and applying before it insulates anything, and the labor to do that can dwarf the material cost.
So the form is not a detail to settle after picking a supplier. It sets the install method, the trades involved, and the real installed cost. Decide it from your surface first, then compare suppliers inside that form, not across them.
Some suppliers span several forms
A few manufacturers carry more than one form. Two of them, Ningbo Surnano and Zhengzhou Exceed, list five each, from blanket to coating, and others carry three or four. That breadth can simplify sourcing when a project needs both a blanket for the pipe runs and a panel for the flat faces. It does not change the rule: match the form to the job first, then see who supplies it.
How to shortlist
- Name the form your surface needs. Flexible wrap for curves and pipe (blanket), rigid flat for walls and modules (panel or board), or a feedstock (powder, particle, granule) for a coating or composite.
- Filter the directory to that form. The form chips narrow the list to suppliers that make it.
- Then shortlist on the specs that matter for your job, temperature rating and thermal conductivity, and put your finalists side by side in the directory table.
Pick the form first and the supplier list gets shorter and more honest. Pick the supplier first and you risk buying a powder for a job that needed a blanket.
Filter the directory by product form, then compare your finalists side by side in the table.