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Making Aerogel

🕑 Added 2020-03-27 05:39:40 +0000 UTC

Comments

Joseph Chang

Incredible work! 👏🏼

Adam Rak

with waterglass the precise control of the internal structure is lost, so I guess the result would be quite crappy, more like airy silica gel. But the article is interesting though!

Eliri SDH

You outdid yourself here. Great combination of instructive and entertaining.

Nile Red

lol thanks

Nile Red

Thanks!!

Nile Red

Thanks!

Nile Red

Thanks, I am!

Nile Red

Interesting!

Nile Red

It is kind of like silica gel. It was like glass rice crispies.

Nile Red

Thanks!

Nile Red

Correct. Also, the TMOS gel apparently has larger pores and is less prone to cracking during drying.

Chas Evans

It's possible, though much more arduous than supercritical drying. Check out this paper, which reports densities down to about 0.1g/cc: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnoncrysol.2018.09.049 (sorry about the paywall) Edit: also, they used MTMS for that paper, not TMOS. I still think it should be possible, but it might be harder with water glass.

Chas Evans

TMOS hydrolyzes more rapidly than TEOS, so the sol prep step can be carried out with fewer ingredients. The hydrolysis of TEOS typically requires a catalyst to make it work properly (aerogel.org recommends ammonium fluoride).

Adam Rak

I have tried and succeeded at gelling up water glass, but I do not have a supercritical chamber. Is it possible to make aerogel from gelled water glass? Or the density would be much less than what we consider aerogel, and more like silica gel?

Adam Rak

very good video, with lots of interesting details! One of the best I have seen on aerogel, it was well worth the work you have put into it. When you have air dried the gel, you got silica gel, right? It looked and fizzled like very airy silica gel.

Congrats! Looks so cool, you should be proud! :)

Silviu T

I wouldn't dream of withdrawing my support. Especially now.

Amazing and congratulations! Your projects have constantly been an inspiration to me and seeing the amount of work and research that was put into this really puts into perspective how impressive the final result came out to be.