Aerogel Called "Frozen Smoke" is a Space Age Material With Many Uses

The newest and latest material to be introduced into regular life is a actually a thing of the past. How is that? Aerogel ( or "liquid smoke" or "frozen smoke" as it is called ) is finally being used after being created back in the 1930s. About seventy years ago, a bet was made between two scientists. They wagered to see if one could replace the liquid inside a jar of jelly with gas and not have any shrinkage.

The scientist who accomplished it was named Kistler. He created the aerogel, but no one had a real use for it, so it was put on the back burner. He had just created a solid that was the least dense material on earth. A block of aerogel the size of a man weighs one pound. This one pound of aerogel can support a small car.

Today, aerogel is being used for many things. One use is to gather dust from comets and it does so superbly. It gathered the dust from a comet named "wild 2" and was successful in bringing back to earth the first particles of that comet flying through space. Nasa was thrilled. It is a terrific insulator. As a future building material, it is fittingly created wth its better qualities only from the orbiting space station. Gravity affects the manufacturing and pure form of aerogel.

Aerogel is opaque. Pure aerogel is nearly invisible. If you could get it to be as clear as glass windows, it would no doubt be their replacement. They are made of the same silica material. The greater part of the heat energy in a house escapes through the windows.

Aerogel could put gas prices way down during the winter. It is equivalent to thirty panes of glass for insulation value. Aerogel was used in the Mars rovers to keep them warm in the super cold Martian weather. It was once tried in jackets, but the exceeding thermal properties caused people to complain that the jackets were too hot to wear !

Aerogel is described by scientists as the "ultimate sponge". It is filled with super tiny pores, much smaller than any sponge ever seen from the sea. Its surface area from one cubic centimeter is approximately the same as one football field. That is alot of area!

With such a low weight to surface area ratio it is suited to being the material inside fuel cells. Hydrogen fuel cells need pure hydrogen and aerogel is perfectly suited to this task. Its pores can be "tuned" to filter out a myriad of different cell sizes. Aerogel can be used to purify water with a extremely high filter ratio.

The military will be looking into aerogel as a protective shield for many things since it can withstand a blast much more effectively than steel. Remember the comet example ? Regular metal would not have lasted as well as the aerogel when the pieces of comet were caught.

It has been used as a coating for steel to protect from blasts with good results. It could be used right now in Iraq on our humvees being destroyed by roadside bombs. Aerogel is a true space age material, ready to take on the future needs of Nasa, the military and other industry. It may soon be in your house.