About Aerogel - InterNACHI®

by Nick Gromicko, CMI®Aerogel is a class of porous, solid materials that exhibits an impressive array of extreme properties. Invented in and used for decades in scientific applications, aerogel is becoming increasingly feasible as a building insulation, largely due to a decrease in the price of the material.Aerogel is still prohibitively costly for most homeowners, and the few who can afford it probably don’t know what it is. At expensive properties with environmentally friendly features, however, inspectors should be prepared to encounter the material. Also, the prevalence of aerogel is likely to increase in the coming years as it becomes more affordable and widely known.Physical Properties and Identification Aerogel holds 15 world records for material properties, a few of which are listed below. Aerogel is:

• lightweight. It is, in fact, the lowest-density solid on the planet. Some types are composed of more than 99% air, yet they still function as solids;
• extremely high in surface area. It can have a surface area up to 3,000 square meters per gram, meaning that a cubic inch of aerogel, if flattened out, could cover an entire football field; and
• strong. It can support up to 4,000 times its own weight. In the picture at right, a 2-gram piece of the material is supporting a  5-pound brick.

The following qualities will also assist with identification. Aerogel:

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• appears blue due to Rayleigh scattering, the same phenomenon that colors the sky;
• feels like Styrofoam® to the touch. Although a slight touch will not leave a mark, pressing more firmly will leave a lasting depression or even produce a catastrophic breakdown in the structure, causing it to shatter like glass; and
• is rigid. Despite its name, it is hard and dry, little resembling the gel from which it was derived.

ProductionAerogel is derived from gels, which are substances in which solid particles span a liquid medium. The first aerogel was produced from silica gels, although later work involved alumina, chromia, carbon and tin oxide. Through a process called super-critical drying, the liquid  component of the gel is removed, leaving behind the hollow, solid framework. The resulting aerogel is a porous, ultra-lightweight lattice composed of more than 90% air. Ordinarily, drying of a gel results in its shrinkage and collapse (think of Jell-O left out for a few days), but super-critical drying is performed under intense heat and pressure that preserve the structure of the gel.  

Manufacturers offer the material in a variety of forms, such as the granules pictured at right, made by Cabot, which are sometimes used as insulation in skylights. Aspen Aerogel® offers 57-inch wide rolls of the material in 0.2- and 0.4-inch thicknesses, while Thermoblok® comes in 1.5-inch wide strips that are used to cover framing studs and help prevent thermal bridging at a cost of about $1.99 per foot. 

Safety

Aerogel safety is dependent on the safety of the gel from which it was made; it will be carcinogenic, for instance, if the gel from which it was derived had this quality. Fortunately, silica-based aerogel is not known to be dangerous, although it may irritate skin, mucous membranes, eyes, the respiratory tract, and the digestive system. Aerogel is hydroscopic and extremely dry to the touch, which can, in turn, cause it to dry out unprotected skin. Gloves and goggles are recommended for inspectors and contractors who must handle the material.

Aerogel does not seem to be an environmental threat. Aspen Aerogel’s® website states: “Aerogel blankets do not meet any of the characteristics of a U.S. EPA hazardous waste,” and further notes that scrap aerogel may be disposed of in landfills that are approved to accept industrial waste.In summary, aerogel is a safe, remarkably effective thermal insulator whose use should become more widespread as it becomes more affordable.

What, you may ask, is aerogel? Aerogels are the world's lightest solid materials, composed of up to 99.98% air by volume. Aerogels are a diverse class of amazing materials with properties unlike anything else. Transparent superinsulating silica aerogels exhibit the lowest thermal conductivity of any solid known. Ultrahigh surface area carbon aerogels power today's fast-charging supercapacitors. And ultrastrong, bendable x-aerogels are the lowest-density structural materials ever developed.

Welcome to Aerogel.org. Here you will find an encyclopedic reference about aerogels, how-to guides for making aerogels and building a do-it-yourself supercritical dryer, the world's most comprehensive aerogel image gallery, a podcast with the world's leading aerogel scientists, and more.

Aerogel's not just for NASA anymore. Welcome to open-source nanotech.

Abstract submission is now open for the Aerogels and Aerogel-Inspired Materials symposium at the Fall meeting of the Materials Research Society in Boston this Nov 30-Dec 5, . Abstract submission opened May 19, and closes on June 18, ! Mark your calendar and be sure to put in your latest work for what will certainly be the biggest and best meeting of aerogel minds yet!

Submit abstracts at the link below!

https://www.mrs.org/meetings-events/annual-meetings/-mrs-fall-meeting/call-for-abstract-submissions/view/-mrs-fall-meeting/Symposium-SF01-Aerogels-and-Aerogel-Inspired-Materials

See the entire set of topical clusters for the conference below:

https://www.mrs.org/meetings-events/annual-meetings/-mrs-fall-meeting/call-for-papers

—The Steering Committee

Stephen A. Steiner III, Lidija Siller, Radmila Tomoskova, Galit Bar, Ameya Rege, Barbara Milow, Stephanie Brock, and Kazuyoshi Kanamori

I am pleased to announce the list of invited speakers for the upcoming and star-studded Aerogels and Aerogel-Inspired Materials symposium to be held at the Fall meeting of the Materials Research Society in Boston this Nov 30-Dec 5, . Abstract submission opens May 19, and closes just one month later on June 18, ! Mark your calendar and finish those last-minute experiments, XPS scans, and BET runs!

Come hear the latest in hot topics like metal aerogels, accelerated solvent exchange, biopolymers, and commercialization!

• Irina Smirnova , Hamburg University of Technology
• Indika Arichchige, Virginia Commonwealth University
• Colonel John Burpo, United States Military Academy at West Point
• Alexander Eychmueller, Technical University of Dresden
• Jakub Gac, Warsaw University of Technology
• George Hasegawa, Nagoya University
• Matthew Herman, Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Petra Herman, University of Debrecen
• Marc Hodes, Tufts University
• Saiful Islam, Jackson State University
• Pradip Maji, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
• Tom McCarthy, University of Massachusetts Amherst
• Patricia McNeil, Westwood Aerogel
• Natalia Menshutina, Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia
• Beatriz Merillas Valero, University of Valladolid
• Debra Rolison, United States Naval Research Laboratory
• Tsuguyuki Saito, The University of Tokyo
• Makoto Tabata, Chiba University
• Stephanie Vivod, NASA Glenn Research Center
• Kyle Wilke, Aeroshield
• Shanyu Zhao, EMPA
• Guoqing Zu, Tongji University
• Nadia Bigall, University of Hannover

…and most of all, we look forward to meeting you there!

—The Steering Committee

Stephen A. Steiner III, Lidija Siller, Radmila Tomoskova, Galit Bar, Ameya Rege, Barbara Milow, Stephanie Brock, and Kazuyoshi Kanamori

Link to Nano

We are pleased to announce the third Aerogels and Aerogel-Inspired Materials Symposium to be held this Nov 30 through Dec 5, at the Fall meeting of the Materials Research Society aka MRS in Boston, Massachusetts USA. The symposium is being held in conjunction with the Third International Conference of Aerogels and Aerogel-Inspired Materials and will be six action-packed days of the latest mind-bending physics-defying aerogel science.  All are welcome to attend and we invite you to submit an abstract for a talk or poster. The symposium will feature a mesmerizing aerogel sculpture garden from aerogel artist Ioannis Michaloudis along with a tutorial for newcomers to the field to be held on the Sunday before the conference begins. Featured topics include:

• New compositions and pore structures for aerogels and aerogel-like materials
• High-performance synthetic polymer aerogels
• Electroosmosis, supercritical suction and spillage, high-temperature supercritical drying, freeze casting, continuous manufacturing, never-wet processes, and other diffusion-busting techniques
• Aerogel composites and nanocomposites
• Energy storage, capture, and conversion with aerogels
• High-energy physics, fusion, and space exploration
• Characterization of mechanical, microstructural, electromagnetic, and other properties of aerogels
• Commercial applications of aerogels in buildings, transportation, batteries, apparel, the arts, and beyond
• Additive manufacturing and other shape control techniques for nanoporous materials
• Aerogel architectures of low-dimensional materials such as MXenes, engineered nanocarbons, semiconductors, and binary compounds
• Conductive, photocatalytic, energetic, superelastic, and other special-functionality aerogels
• Pharmaceutical, food science, and biomedical applications of aerogels
• Simulation and modelling of gels and aerogels
• Sustainability and environmental impact of aerogel production

Invited speakers will be announced next week.

Stay tuned!

At long last—seven years in the making, thousands of hours of writing and editing, and wrangling the works of hundreds of contributors—it is my distinct pleasure to announce the publication of The Springer Handbook of Aerogels! The Springer Handbook series is the flagship research reference line of books published by SpringerNature, the world’s leading academic publisher. This particular work is available in hard copy in their largest format wielding about the maximum allowable page limit before it would have had to be two volumes, amounting to what is undoubtedly the most comprehensive and definitive resource about aerogels ever compiled. This ironically dense and heavy book about the world’s lightest solids is also available for download in pdf format and is a must-have reference for any emerging or experienced researcher in the field.

I served as co-editor for the book and contributed many chapters, including a section titled “Unit Operations” that includes five chapters walking through the basics of sol-gel, solvent exchange, shape control, drying, and postprocessing as these steps apply to aerogels. Also featured are a deep dive into the aerogel industry featuring profiles for over 50 aerogel producers and a step-by-step recipes and designs chapter with hand-picked procedures for dozens of aerogel compositions, how to build a calibrated hot plate for accurately measuring thermal conductivity of aerogels, and an updated guide on how to build and operate a supercritical dryer based on the Aerogel.org tutorial.

The book is available for purchase now and is available for download without purchase through most university library systems.

UPDATE: BuyAerogel.com and AerogelTechnologies.com are back online! If you are still having difficulty placing an order, you can and someone will help you.

Aerogel Technologies was recently featured in an awesome viral video about aerogels on YouTuber Derek Muller’s Veritasium channel.  Unfortunately, the millions-of-views-per-day popularity of the video crippled the Aerogel Tech and BuyAerogel.com servers for everybody looking for aerogel samples!  In the mean time, anyone interested in buying an aerogel sample can  and someone will reach out to you when the servers are back up.  To make up for the epic fail, anybody who emails requesting a sample before June 2, will get a coupon for 10% off their order*. You can browse select aerogel sample products on the Aerogel Technologies Instagram and Twitter feeds @aerogeltech as well! #hugofdeath #wompwomp

*Except for cut-size-blankets, Enova products, or Bottled Sky artwork products.

Researchers at Boston-based Aerogel Technologies, LLC have developed a new technique that, for the first time, enables production of aerogel parts with plastic-like durability in theoretically unlimited dimensions.  This new approach opens the possibility of using aerogels for a wide range of new applications at price points that the company projects will soon be cost-competitive with performance plastics like polycarbonate.

Aerogels are traditionally made using a technique called supercritical drying—a high-pressure process also used in decaffeinating coffee and green dry cleaning performed in expensive stainless steel reactors.  But just as a pizza is limited to the size of an oven, to date aerogels have been limited to size of the supercritical dryers used to make them, meaning parts no bigger than about 60 cm x 60 cm.  This has greatly limited potential applications and has made scaling production extremely costly.  Using their new technique, which the company calls the Stelmakh process, Aerogel Technologies has produced a whopping 90 cm x 90 cm aerogel panel, making it the world’s largest aerogel to date.  The aerogel, made of a proprietary polymer, weighed in at an impressive 7x lighter than typical plastics.  Unlike traditional aerogel production, the new manufacturing technique developed by Aerogel Technologies is performed at ambient conditions eliminating the need for a pressure vessel and enabling production of aerogel parts of theoretically unlimited dimensions.  Aerogel Technologies is already producing 30 cm panels using this technology available for purchase at pre-scale prices through their website BuyAerogel.com.  The company is currently scaling the process to produce panels up to 2 m x 3 m in thicknesses up to 5 cm.

The Fourth International Seminar on Aerogels will be held this September 24-26 in Hamburg, Germany at the Hamburg University of Technology.  This is the fourth installment of this conference series and last time had over 175 attendees.  This year promises to be even bigger and better and will showcase the latest in the rapidly growing field of aerogels.

For more information visit the official conference site below.

http://www.aerogel.org/community/seminar/

People have been hearing about mechanically strong aerogels such as x-aerogels and strong organic aerogels like polyimide aerogels along with all of their promise for use as ultralightweight structures, dust-free superinsulation, and science-fiction-y applications for some time now.   Small samples of strong aerogels have been commercially available for the past couple years, but nothing much bigger than the size of a playing card, or the back panel of a Google Nexus 7 tablet, meaning there has not been a whole lot of movement using these materials for improving building efficiency, making ultralight cars, or building what we all really care about deep down inside, flying cars and hoverboards–applications where ultralight materials could have a significant on reducing carbon dioxide emissions and saving fuel costs.

Well good news.  Aerogel Technologies today announced that they are now manufacturing large (one-foot, 30-cm) panels on its new pilot line, and that these panels are soon to be followed by even larger panels.  The company plans to market these materials as lightweight replacements for plastics for use anywhere weight and cost are coupled, for example, in cars, planes, and refrigerated trucks.

Strong aerogel panels made of Airloy X103, a high-strength organic aerogel that is stable to about 80°C, are being made available on BuyAerogel.com.  Other formulations including new high-temperature Airloy X114 are soon to follow.

Visit BuyAerogel.com to buy large Airloy panels now.

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