Aerogel must be one of the strangest supermaterials to ever exist . Ghostly and shimmering in show , it ’s devilishly calorie-free , incredibly firm , and an amazing caloric dielectric . And its magic trick face dead inconceivable when you see them up close .
Made for Fun
Aerogel material — often referred to as frozen roll of tobacco , square smoke , solid air or profane smoke — is actually , like all the good things , the outcome of a stakes . It was first created bySamuel Stephens Kistlerin 1931 , after he bet Charles determine that he could put back the liquidity in a gelatin with flatulency , without cause shrinkage . Turned out , he was right !
To produce an aerogel , you take a normal gel and then — very slowly and cautiously — withdraw the liquid , leaving behind just the hearty structure . That cognitive process alter depending on the gel in question , but always requiressome complex chemistryto facilitate removal of the liquid bysupercritical drying , which cautiously avoids the liquidity - gas transition by using pressure sensation and temperature edition to go from liquidity to solid to gas instead . Otherwise , the desiccation process can destroy the structure . The upshot is a substance that looks like the original colloidal gel but feel like expanded polystyrene to the touch .
And the material properties ! Oh , the material property . Just look at what it can do .
Aerogel Is an Amazing Insulator
All the trap airwave in aerogel makes it a singular insulator . In fact , Si aerogel has a caloric conductivity of about 0.03 W / mK in atmospheric pressure down to 0.004 W / mK in small vacuum cleaner — values like to those exhibited by melodic phrase itself . Hold it to a flaming , and you wo n’t notice much happen , either — silica aerogel does n’t melt until it attain upwards of 2,000 ° degree Fahrenheit . No , really . Look .
Aerogel Is Insanely Light
It ’s not all silica gel , though . Yes , graphene aerogel sounds like someone combined the twobuzziestof cloth buzzwords — but the results are amazing . In fact , thisgraphene aerogel snatched the claim of the earthly concern ’s lightest materialjust a few of months ago — with a density lower than that of helium and just twice that of hydrogen at 0.16 magnesium / cm3 . This poppycock practically floats . ( apropos , it ’s got line inside , which imply that it does n’t . ) The material was created using a new proficiency which involve freeze - drying solutions of carbon paper carbon nanotube and graphene to create a sort of atomic number 6 sponger . The resulting material is both strong and elastic , as well as incredibly light .
https://gizmodo.com/9-incredible-uses-for-graphene-5988977
And It’s Surprisingly Strong, Too
Silica aerogel is also oddly strong . Just depend at this range : it shows a 5 - punt brick supported by a composition of aerogel which weigh just 0.07 ounces . That strength is a results of — brace yourself for this — its dendritic microstructure . All that imply is that it ’s made up of roughly spherical , nanoscale particle which are fused together in bunch . Those clusters are string together in 3D physique which are almost fractal , provide an endlessly complex and strong social structure . It can even support the weight of a car :
For all of these astonishing properties , though , aerogel is still insanely expensive to manufacture , which is why there are n’t any consumer production made using the material . Yet . In the meanwhile , let ’s just daydream of super - loose , flame retardation , slug - proof suits of armour . Not forged for a little bit of frozen smoke .
Images by NASA , NASA / Caltech and Zhejiang University
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