Aerogel

Basics

• A gel with the liquid replaced with a gas
• Tends to be ultralight, very insulative to convective and conducttive heat (not radiative however)

Production

Produced from sodium silicate [1], which is in turn produced from sand and soda (caustic). To get gel, sodium silicate is acidified [2]. Silica aerogel is produced from silica gel. [3]. Thus, the starting materials cost for all starting materials is standard (<$1/lb), and the feedstocks are abundant. This is OSE Spec as a potential next generation insulation material.

Cost

• Starting to be used in house insulation? [4]

Used For

• Many, many things
• Insulation
• Catalysts
• Optics
• Chemical Absorbant (For spill cleanups etc)
• Electronics (Supercapacitors)
• High Tech/Scientific Research Use Cases
• Aircraft (Lighter internal structure, electric deicing)

Useful Links

• Wikipedia Page on Aerogel
• An Information Page (aerogel.org) says open source? has instructions and info mainly
• A Video by the Voutube Channel "NileRed" on lab scale production of small amounts of Silica aerogel (~5cm*5cm*1cm rectangular prisms)