strange materiels: Solid Smoke (aerogels)

Aerogel is a silicon-based solid with a porous, sponge-like structure in which 99 percent of the volume is empty space. 39 times more insulating than the best fiberglass insulation and 1,000 times less dense than glass.











www.sciencedaily.com...

www.time.com...

homepages.cae.wisc.edu...

Thats really cool, good story/link.

Aerogel is a miracle material. I really really want to use this stuff for insulation in my house and buy a jacket made out of the stuff. Not only can it stop heat it traps in 99.99%(or somthing like that) or the heat as well. And plus is feather light.

EDIT: This stuff is not new BTW, i've heard about it first a couple of years ago. It was developed by NASA. Even more reason to raise the Space Progams funding.

[edit on 4-12-2004 by sardion2000]

A couple of years ago?
I heard this about half a decade ago, when I was still an undergrad.

Good stuff.

I heard that it's strong enough that if you made a ball or box of that stuff, bare-handed average human strength would not be able to break it. You'd need to smash it.

Strong, considering how light it is.

[edit on 4-12-2004 by Nox]

Yes, NASA seems to work miracles, considering their budget. Maybe on a peaceful earth, one day, we may be able to take the money we spend on defence and work even more miracles.

why the hell cant we buy this stuff already?

Originally posted by picard_is_actually_a_grey
why the hell cant we buy this stuff already?

They sell it on e-bay. Although it is just crumpled leftovers people get from NASA
and places like that.

I would love to build a mound of dirt about 20 foot high and 60 in diameter and coat it with this aerogell stuff, then add rebar and about a foot of concrete. Of course you would leave a doorway through which you could drive the bobcat to get the earth out of your new dome home.

The fatal flaw with aerogel is that if it is broken it can be highly toxic. I don't know how harmful it is to people but I think that is one problem for using it as structural insulation. Its also extrodinarly expensive but it is an amazing substance and I would like to see what improvements they can make. Aerogel has actually been around for awhile I think I read about this about 10 to 15 years ago in Popular Science.

Cool stuff though it would be nice to see it used for more.

.
It's always interesting to hear about new (or not so new) miracle materials.

It does seem to take a long time for them to trickle down into common usage at the consumer level. But some do. Teflon, Kevlar, fiber-glass, and carbon fibers all were considered exotic at one time...


By the way, Jadette, those pictures are terrific.


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[edit on 4-12-2004 by cimmerius]

Aerogels were invented over 70 years ago, imagine that! They were extremely fragile, hard to handle, and costly to manufacture by traditional means. For these reasons, the commercial industry found it difficult to produce products that incorporated the material.

But I guess recently there's been some breakthroughs. A company,
Aspen Systems Inc, has developed ways to use it in clothing and other items.

www.aerogel.com...

For those of you that want to buy this stuff, there are places (besides Aspen):

www.mkt-intl.com...

www.mountain-skies.org...

And for good measure - here's another picture: