What Is The Aerogel Like?
As a new generation of materials, the aerogel has been heralded as the world's most solid light, because of very low density, aerogels are the lightest only 0.16 milligrams per cubic centimeter, slightly lower than the density of air, so it is also called "frozen smoke" or "blue smoke". So here comes the question. Since aerogel is lighter than air, why didn't it like a hydrogen balloon floated? Also said that the aerogel is 3kg/m and the weight of the other fand, said, in the end what is the real aerogel? With many questions, we find out.
Is aerogel a glue?
First, we need the preparation process of the aerogel, and we can understand why it is called aerogel and whether it is glue or not. The material obtained by supercritical drying of wet gel is called aerogel. It extracts water from the gel and produces another product. A certain concentration of the polymer solution or sol, under appropriate conditions, the viscosity increases gradually, finally lost liquidity, the whole system into a uniform appearance, and maintain a certain form of elastic half solid, this is called elastic half solid gel. So, in essence, it is gel, or polymer, but it will not be colloid like colloid that we usually see. Because aerogels are rich in air, they are called aerogels.
What is the multiplicity of aerogels, can they float?
First we have to know that aerogels are divided into many kinds of materials, such as silicon, carbon, sulfur, metal oxide, and so on. Their weight is different, but it is lighter than air. Only if it needs to be in vacuum, then he can not call aerogel. It should be called vacuum aerogel, because it is rich in air and gas. 99.99% of the volume of the aerogel is air, while the density of the carbon sponge is 0.16 mg / cubic centimeter and is only one order of magnitude smaller than the air density of 1.205 mg / cubic centimeter, indicating that the air based aerogel density in the picture is actually very close to the air and is suspended in the air, not enough to produce enough lift to hold. Continue to float. Aerogels are porous structures. The middle will be filled with air, just like a sponge will absorb water. But the sponge can't be a buoyant material. The air density is 1.205mg/cm^3 at standard atmospheric pressure of 20 degrees, and the volume of equivalent volume is lighter than air.
How much is the real aerogel?
First we determine the aerogel a category, because of the different categories of weight are different, second aerogel form, powder or particles, and the way of calculating the weight density, bulk density and apparent density is. The aerogels produced by the technology are SiO2 aerogels, the bulk density of the powders is 40~120kg/m 60~120kg/m, and the bulk density of the particles is 60~120kg/m. The whole feeling is like the density of foam polystyrene. The standard requirement is 18-30kg/m. Aerogel powder particle size is 0.1~1mm, the particle size of 1~5mm powder, when dumping transfer, it feels like falling like flour flour, but the size of coarse, lighter, when dumping the need to pay particular attention to slow, so as to avoid air floating gas gel.
The real aerogel is white, and when it reaches a certain amount, it will see pale blue and brilliant colors.