Aerogel - How it Can Change Material Science

Aerogel is a synthetic and manmade porous ultralight material composed of a gel, with the liquid component of the gel having been replaced with that of a gas. Created in 1931 by Samuel Stephens Kistler in 1931, the substance is produced by extracting the liquid component of a gel through supercritical drying, allowing the liquid to be gradually dried off without causing the solid matrix in the gel to collapse from capillary action.

The result of this modification is a solid with extremely low density and low thermal conductivity.

It's also known as frozen smoke, solid smoke, solid air, or blue smoke, because of the translucent blue hue it has been known to emit, as well as the way light scatters through the material's microscopic pores. Its touch has been described as feeling like super-fragile Styrofoam, and it can be made from a variety of chemical compounds not yet very limited.

Put simply, aerogel is a material wonder with a variety of real-world application and use.

In 2004 alone $25 million of aerogel insulation product was sold, with that number skyrocketing to $500 million by 2013. The public interest and investment in aerogel as an effective source of insulation for aerospace use is staggering, as well as the unavoidable potential to completely replace conventional insulation used by the building, construction, and industrial sectors. Overall, aerogel has surpassed its expected use and is expected to increase in value over the following years as more applicable uses are exploited for this wonderful material.

The beauty of aerogel lies in the way it is made versus conventional insulation. Without chopping down trees for lumber, without shearing sheep for wool, and without using any otherwise nonrenewable resource, the market for aerogel - a relatively simple to make material in most laboratory environments - is based on its effectiveness and vast appeal to become a renewable source of insulating material.

Its durability has been known to support the frames of its more conventionally solid counterparts as well - demonstrations have been done to show that it can maintain the weight of a 2.5 kg brick (suspended by a thin strip of aerogel only weighing in at 2 g.)

According to Extreme Tech, "The graphene aerogel can recover completely after more than 90% compression, and absorb up to 900 times its own weight in oil, at a rate of 68.8 grams per second… Graphene aerogel is seven times lighter than air [and] can balance on a blade of grass."

Although aerogel is still fairly expensive compared to the tried-and-true conventional insulation mentioned previously, scientists have been working to make the process cheaper and less hazardous for those involved to significantly lower the price and make it more accessible for everyone. Once that becomes a reality, the applications to be found for this miraculous wonder material will no doubt double, perhaps even triple in its uses.

image - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Aerogel_hand.jpg