The Blog

Upcoming on The Critical Point! We’re pleased to announce a series of four podcasts all about Cabot Aerogel–from basic science to big business, learn about the commercialization of aerogel for buildings, subsea oil pipelines, coatings, and more. Expect the first episode in this series starting in September!

In the mean time we’ve got a great line-up of podcasts for the Summer. Stay linked!

Private astronaut Richard Garriott (also known as “Lord British”, the creator of the Ultima series) received the first-ever Spirit of Yuri’s Night Award in recognition of embodying the Yuri’s Night mission of using space and art to contribute to the future of humanity, both in space and on Earth.  Yuri’s Night is an annual worldwide celebration to commemorate the first human spaceflight made by Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961.

Read the press release here.

Designed by artist and Aerogel.org co-founder Will Walker, this year’s Yuri is the fist-ever award to incorporate aerogels. The plaque component of the award was custom laser-machined for Yuri’s Night by aerospace engineers Shannon Dong and Thomas Coffee at MIT. Engraved into the plaque is the same trademark, stylized likeness of Yuri Gagarin that serves as the logo for Yuri’s Night worldwide. Illuminated by diffused ambient light, Gagarin’s image glows with a subtle orange-gold hue. Accenting Gagarin’s image is a rosette of five flawless classic silica aerogel discs, the same material used to

insulate the Mars exploration rovers and used to capture comet dust on the Stardust probe. Their characteristic sky-blue cast is contrasted against the black background of the plaque, reminiscent of the contrast of our own spaceship Earth against the blackness of outer space. The particular aerogels used in the award are comprised of 96% air by volume and were produced by Aerogel Technologies, LLC using a robotic high pressure autoclave.

Production of the award was co-sponsored by BuyAerogel.com and Aerogel.org.

For those of you waiting to see aerogel actually commercialized for use in buildings one day, wait no more. Cabot Corporation, maker of Nanogel^® aerogel, is already enabling some cool possibilities in architecture by introducing economical translucent superinsulating aerogel granules into skylights and windows. From buildings that look like glowing ice cubes to energy-saving daylighting, Nanogel is already finding uses in architecture projects around the world.

Interested in learning more about Nanogel? On Thursday, March 25, the Construction Specifications Institute will be hosting an online seminar with Cabot Corporation about Nanogel and how it is quickly being incorporated into buildings. Should be a good presentation, especially for architects and engineers interested in the thermal and optical properites of commercially-available aerogel materials.

Register for the seminar here. Continuing education credits for architects are available.

For those of you interested in actually getting your hands on some, you can experience Nanogel for yourself with product samples from BuyAerogel.com, along with other types of aerogel materials.

The long-awaited second installment of our two-part series “How to Make Silica Aerogel” has finally been posted! Learn how to transform gels into aerogels using supercritical drying in this detailed podcast. A great in-depth guide for those of you interested in making your own aerogels and building your own supercritical dryer, or if you’re already making aerogels but have problems with the aerogels turning out white or cracked.

You can learn how to build your own supercritical dryer and read a detailed step-by-step guide on how to do supercritical drying under the Make section.

By the way, if you think all of this is too hard for you to do yourself, know at least three high school students have done all of this without significant budgets or university laboratories!

As always questions and comments are welcome.

This week on The Critical Point, in our fourth installment of our continuing series “The People Who Reinvented Aerogel”, we sit down with Prof. Nicholas Leventis from the Missouri University of Science and Technology and learn about ultrastrong, flexible x-aerogels and metal aerogels–two new classes of materials that enable some very exciting technological possibilities.  X-aerogels are the first structural aerogels ever developed, and metal aerogels combine conductivity, catalytic activity, and high surface area.

Get the podcast here.

Greetings aerogel enthusiasts and a warm 2010 to you all. It’s been a busy couple months but we’re back in action with some new articles on how to make silica aerogel with TMOS (the procedure described in Episode 5 of the podcast), how to make carbon aerogels, how aerogels can be made without supercritical drying (subcritical drying), how to make subcritically-dried silica aerogels yourself, and an exciting podcast line-up, including:

• Prof. Nicholas Leventis on flexible, strong x-aerogels and new metal aerogels
• How to Make Silica Aerogel, Part 2: Supercritical Drying (at last!)
• Dr. George Gould from Aspen Aerogels on commercialization of aerogel insulation blankets
• Dr. John Reynolds from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on remediating toxic waste with aerogels
• Dr. Bryce Tappan from Los Alamos National Laboratory on combustion synthesis of nanoporous metal foams and explosive cryogels
• How to Build a Supercritical Dryer (Yes, You Can Too!)
• Prof. C. Jeffrey Brinker of Sandia National Laboratory and University of New Mexico, father of modern sol-gel chemistry
• Subcritical Drying of Silica Aerogel
• The elusive Dr. Debra Rolison of the “Department of Nanoarchitecture” at the Naval Research Laboratory on nanoarchitecture and aerogels for energy storage

Lots of good stuff coming up!  Get involved.

One more thing–we’re going to be translating Aerogel.org into other languages this year, starting with Spanish and Arabic.  Anyone with technical ability in either language who’s interested in helping, please leave a comment!

At long last we have posted fully illustrated instructions for how to use the supercritical dryer you build in the Make section. Check out Supercritical Drying with Liquid Carbon Dioxide Parts 1 and 2 under Make > Gel Drying Procedures and supercritically dry some aerogels today!

The “How to Make Silica Aerogel Part 2″ podcast will post soon.

A huge congratulations to Prof. Nicholas Leventis at the Missouri University of Science and Technology (MS&T) on being named Curators’ Professor of Chemistry–an honor bestowed upon the best of the best in the University of Missouri system. Prof. Leventis is the inventor of x-aerogels, which are mechanically strong aerogels, as well as metal aerogels derived through sol-gel precursors.

Read all about it here.

In honor of Prof. Leventis’ accomplishment, we will be featuring an interview with him on this month’s episode of The Critical Point here on Aerogel.org.

Congratulations Prof. Leventis! You deserve it.

We’re excited to announce an upcoming e-seminar featuring Bart Kalkstein, General Manager of Cabot Aerogel and Jim Satterwhite, Global Business Manager of Cabot Aerogel, who will talk about Cabot’s Nanogel® product–a granular form of silica aerogel used as superinsulation and in daylighting (skylights).

The seminar will be held Wednesday, December 16 (next week!) at 11 AM EST (Boston time) and will takes the form of an audio broadcast accompanied by a slideshow, all accessible from your computer. Here’s a brief overview of what they’ll talk about:

Nanogel aerogel introduction - Bart Kalkstein

• Overview
• Market applications
• Recent advancements

Nanogel aerogel in daylighting applications - Jim Satterwhite

• How Nanogel is transforming architecture
• Performance benefits
• Natural daylighting
• Glazing technology advancements
• Overview of various daylighting systems
• Nanogel: A green building product

This event is brought to you by our partner IntertechPira, who put on the International Aerogels Conference in 2007 and the World Aerogels Summit 2008. Registration is cost $145. For those of you who can’t make the live broadcast, you can still register and view a recording of the event any time after.

Register here. Get a sample of Nanogel here.

Check it out! Great for those aspiring entrepreneurs and green technologists interested in learning about how aerogel is making a real impact in the world already.

This week on “The Critical Point” is the third installment of our continuing series “The People Who Reinvented Aerogel” featuring Prof. Stephanie Brock from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.  In this episode, Prof. Brock discusses the exciting world of aerogels made from quantum dots (also called “metal chalcogenide aerogels” or “chalcogels”) and how these strange new materials could revolutionize solar cells, catalysts, and production of hydrogen from water and sunlight.  Listen to it here.

Prof. Brock, who started out as a French major in college, also talks about the value of coming to science from a different perspective and the importance of working outside “the box”.

Quantum dot aerogels, discovered by Prof. Stephanie Brock, may change the way we think about energy production in the future (image courtesy Prof. Stephanie Brock)