Technology
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Aerogel
People are intrigued by how lightweight, transparent, and amazingly porous the
aerogel is. Porous materials scatter light and almost always are opaque or whitish.
The near transparency of the material implied extremely fine pore structure. [3]
Aerogel is a manufactured material with the lowest density of any known solid. It is
derived from a gel in which the liquid component of the gel has been replaced with
a gas. The result is an extremely low-density solid with several remarkable
properties, most notably its effectiveness as a thermal insulator and its extremely
low density. [1]
Aerogels are produced by extracting the liquid component of a gel through
supercritical drying. This allows the liquid to be slowly drawn off without causing the
solid matrix in the gel to collapse from capillary action, as would happen with
conventional evaporation. The first aerogels were produced from silica gels. [1]
Recent Research:
An invention is enabled by the surprising discovery that aerogels may be coated
with monolayers, without destroying the high surface area and random structure
that characterizes aerogels, by utilizing a supercritical fluid as a reaction medium.
Accordingly, the monolayer coated aerogels of the present invention are formed by
first providing a monolayer forming precursor and an aerogel in a supercritical fluid,
allowing the monolayer forming precursor to form a monolayer on the surface of the
aerogel, and removing the thus formed monolayer coated aerogel from the
supercritical fluid.
________________________________________________
[1] Wikipedia August 2009
[2] http://availabletechnologies.pnl.gov/technology.asp?id=171
[3] http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/aerogel-insulation.html
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People are intrigued by how lightweight, transparent, and amazingly porous the
aerogel is. Porous materials scatter light and almost always are opaque or whitish.
The near transparency of the material implied extremely fine pore structure. [3]
Aerogel is a manufactured material with the lowest density of any known solid. It is
derived from a gel in which the liquid component of the gel has been replaced with
a gas. The result is an extremely low-density solid with several remarkable
properties, most notably its effectiveness as a thermal insulator and its extremely
low density. [1]
Aerogels are produced by extracting the liquid component of a gel through
supercritical drying. This allows the liquid to be slowly drawn off without causing the
solid matrix in the gel to collapse from capillary action, as would happen with
conventional evaporation. The first aerogels were produced from silica gels. [1]
Recent Research:
An invention is enabled by the surprising discovery that aerogels may be coated
with monolayers, without destroying the high surface area and random structure
that characterizes aerogels, by utilizing a supercritical fluid as a reaction medium.
Accordingly, the monolayer coated aerogels of the present invention are formed by
first providing a monolayer forming precursor and an aerogel in a supercritical fluid,
allowing the monolayer forming precursor to form a monolayer on the surface of the
aerogel, and removing the thus formed monolayer coated aerogel from the
supercritical fluid.
________________________________________________
[1] Wikipedia August 2009
[2] http://availabletechnologies.pnl.gov/technology.asp?id=171
[3] http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/aerogel-insulation.html
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