#aerogel
I thought we should do a post on Aerogel for the hell of it.. so here it is!
Aerogel is a synthetic ultralight material derived from a gel, in which the liquid component of the gel has been replaced with gases. Aerogels are solid and dry materials that do not resemble gels in their physical properties.‘Pressing softly on an aerogel typically does not leave even a minor mark; pressing more firmly will leave a permanent depression. Pressing extremely firmly will cause a catastrophic breakdown in the sparse structure, causing it to shatter like glass – a property known as friability; although more modern variations do not suffer from this.’
The slight coloring that Aerogel has comes from Rayleigh scattering of the shorter wavelengths. This will cause the Aerogel to appear blue on dark background and yellow on brighter backgrounds.
Aerogels can be made out of the materials: Silica, Carbon, Aluminium oxide. And there is an ‘organic’ aerogel made out of agar that goes by SEAgel.
The last picture in this photoset is of a Stardust Dust Collector made by NASA
Sources and picture sources: http://hight3ch.com, http://gyroscope.com, http://assets.dornob.com, http://www.thinkgeek.com, and http://en.wikipedia.org
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We found this video of the weird sound that aerogel makes if you drop it onto a hard surface*. It looks like it would be a squishy gel, but it’s actually hard like glass, and light as a feather. You can light a gas torch on one side and it won’t get hot enough to light a match sitting on the other side! Once you see this amazing substance for yourself, you’ll understand why some people call it “frozen smoke”.
*We don’t recommend dropping Aerogel. Its unique qualities make it fragile and prone to chip or break when roughly handled.
The difference between silicon aerogel an carbon aerogel is that carbon aerogel deforms plastically instead of shattering making it strong as steel and light as air ☼v☼
We found this video of the weird sound that aerogel makes if you drop it onto a hard surface*. It looks like it would be a squishy gel, but it’s actually hard like glass, and light as a feather. You can light a gas torch on one side and it won’t get hot enough to light a match sitting on the other side! Once you see this amazing substance for yourself, you’ll understand why some people call it “frozen smoke”.
*We don’t recommend dropping Aerogel. Its unique qualities make it fragile and prone to chip or break when roughly handled.
Aerogel is one of the greatest insulators of all time. It has extremely low density and an incredible ability to protect mechanical systems from a large range of temperatures. All this power, yet it feels lighter than air. Thanks to NASA, aerogel is now included in many, many consumer products and industrial systems.
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