SILICA AEROGEL

SILICA AEROGEL

ABSTRACT:

1. Silica Aerogel is low density, low thermal conductivity, high kinetic energy absorbing material.
2. Since their recognition in last century, silica aerogel have been propose for wide application in space shuttle for storing rocket fuel such as oxygen and hydrogen.
3. Previous application of silica aerogel have been hampered by it’s slow manufacturing processes.
4. Materials used today for absorbing impacts are commonly organic foams, such as expanded polystyrene, polyurethanes, polyethers, or polyethylene. Silica aerogels, being an inorganic solid. Hence use of silica aerogel is environment friendly.

INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY:

Prof. Steven. S. Kistler, Professor of the College of the Pacific in Stockton, California was the first scientist who prepared the“AEROGEL” first in 1931 and spent a lot of time to study their properties and uses. However, the Kistler's method, of preparing aerogels was very laborious and time-consuming and took weeks to prepare.

However, the major development came in 1970s, when the French Government approached Stanislaus Teichner at University Claud Bernard, Lyon seeking a method for storing oxygen and Rocket fuels in porousmaterials. He was strongly motivated to find a better synthetic process. This directly lead to one of the major advances in “AEROGEL SCIENC” namely the application of sol-gel chemistry to SILICA AEROGEL preparation. This process replaced the sodium silicate used by Kistler with an alkoxysilane. This eliminated two drawbacks in Kistler's procedure, namely, the water-to-alcohol exchange step and the presence of inorganic salts in the gel. Hence time required preparing the aerogel get reduce.

After this discovery, new developments in aerogels science and technology occurred rapidly as an increasing number of researchers joined the field.


for more info visit.
http://www.enjineer.com/forum