Silica aerogels (SA) are identified as one of the most advanced thermal insulating materials to date, however, their range of applications is limited due to a high sensitivity to moisture and issues with brittleness. This study highlights the design and fabrication of a new and ...
Ambient pressure dried hydrophobic silica aerogel monoliths were prepared via simultaneous solvent exchange and surface modification in order to minimize volume shrinkage and density. At room temperature, the obtained silica aerogels had a low density of 0.096 g/cm3, a high surface area and hydrophobicity, and ...
The effective thermal conductivity of a commercial silica aerogel is determined at various gas pressures ranging from 0.001 Pa to 1 MPa in order to determine the contribution of gaseous heat conduction to the effective thermal conductivity of nano-porous materials. It was determined that the gas pressure ...
Ultralow density silica aerogels were formulated by sol-gel process using tetramethyl orthosilicate as the precursor. A supercritical drying step was performed using acetonitrile solvent extraction. These aerogels were found to have a high specific surface area (~812m2/g) and they were found to be excellent ...
The authors prepared silica aerogel/polyurethane composites by two different methods for the comparison of the two methods. The objective was to study the thermal insulation and hydrophobic properties of the composites to evaluate their potential for use as fabric membranes. It was found that ...
