User-Generated Aerogel Recipes

There are many different ways to make aerogels with range of compositions, densities, and morphologies and new innovations in aerogel science emerge regularly.

We invite you to post newly developed procedures, common procedures you find useful, problems experienced with published procedures, and requests for procedures here.

Some examples of procedures we feel would benefit the open-source community:

  • Various formulations for making silica aerogel
  • Successes and failures with epoxide-assisted gelation of metal salts
  • Techniques and procedures for efficient solvent exchange
  • Techniques for functionalizing silica aerogel surfaces
  • Methods for making aerogel composites
  • Methods for casting aerogel shapes
  • Methods for making aerogel powders
  • Procedures for other sol-gel materials such as gels, xerogels, and ceramics

For verified ready-to-use procedures for making various gels and aerogels, see the Aerogel Recipes in the Make section.

2 Responses to “User-Generated Aerogel Recipes”

  1. josh says:

    silica aerogel and its transparency ratings would be very useful I am interested in solar collectors for heating oil or water. This would relate to transparency of wavelenths that produce heat.

  2. josh says:

    A community drier would help clasify recipies a recipe and sample could be mailed to a location to dry and mesure things like light spectrum transparency etc. that would reduce the making of extera driers.

    Since the site has a diy drier it would be benifical to pay a small ammount to have your sample dried and cataloged.