Aerogel Composites

Crayons on Aerogel over a flame

Aerogel is not like conventional foams, but is a special porous material with extreme microporosity on a micron scale. It is composed of individual features only a few nanometers in size. These are linked in a highly porous dendritic-like structure. 

This exotic substance has many unusual properties, such as low thermal conductivity, refractive index and sound speed - in addition to its exceptional ability to capture fast moving dust. Aerogel is made by high temperature and pressure-critical-point drying of a gel composed of colloidal silica structural units filled with solvents. Aerogel was prepared and flight qualified at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). JPL also produced aerogel for the Mars Pathfinder and Stardust missions, which possesses well-controlled properties and purity. This particular JPL-made silica aerogel approaches the density of air. It is strong and easily survives launch and space environments. JPL aerogel capture experiments have flown previously and been recovered on Shuttle flights, Spacelab II and Eureca. 

Carbon Aerogels (CA)

 

Carbon aerogels are unique porous materials with controllable pore size distribution, high surface areas and low electrical resistivity. They are mainly prepared by pyrolysis of RF aerogels in an inert atmoshpere. Carbon aerogels are expected to be used as thermal and photonoic insulators, electric double layer capacitors, chromatographic packings, adsorbents, sensors, filters, gas storage media and catalyst supports.

  

Carbon Aerogel Supported Platinum (CASP)

Aerogel Composite, LLC's patented technology enables the production of composite materials with controlled porosity, pore size distribution, electrical conductivity and platinum crystallite size. The materials are primarily for use in preparation of electrodes for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs).

Resorcinol-Formaldehyde (RF) Aerogels

 

Polycondensation of resorcinol with formaldehyde in aqueous solutions leads to gels that can be supercritically dried with CO₂ to form organic aerogels which are called resorcinol-formaldehyde (RF) aerogels . RF aerogels are the only organic aerogels. They are useful in a wide variety of applications requiring insulating organic aerogels.