Dr. Peter Tsou of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory once said, "you could take a two- or three-bedroom house, insulate it with aerogel, and you could heat the house with a candle. But eventually the house would become too hot." So why haven't we all been spraying our buildings with the stuff? Unfortunately, for the past 75 years aerogel has been way too expensive, but that's all about to change.
Aerogel is made by removing liquid from gels, resulting in a material that's over 90 percent air and four times more efficient than fiberglass or foam. Aerogel used to be so expensive only NASA's federal budget could handle the cost, but a few companies have been working on a way to produce the stuff without breaking the budget, including Aspen Aerogels, which has developed a version that's relatively easy to work with (it's sold as rolled up sheets). While their insulator is still more expensive than traditional insulators, the cost is validated when you realize that aerogel allows water vapor to pass through and is fire resistant.
A few other companies are making strides in the field as well, including Cabot and ThermaBlok. Hopefully with the added competition, prices will go down even more. Contractors are already using the new aerogels to insulate homes that are sealed from the outside, both over masonry and under shingles, Ceramics.org reports. "On wood frame homes, thin strips of aerogel can be applied to studs to prevent what’s called thermal bridging, where heat escapes through the walls’ framing."
Check out the rad video below, which shows just how powerful aerogel is as it protects from both heat and cold.
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this blows my mind. i'm sharing this with all my friends.
Which I could get more information on price.. or I could invest in the company. This is the future of insulation and energy conservation.
Now, I'm not one to discredit the existence of Aerogel, but seriously... touching and holding your finger to a 100 centigrade surface?
Please, do try that one at home.
Friend of mine pointed out where I'm wrong. Well... I'll concede, I didn't major in physics after all. Though, I'd also say that if I had made that commercial I'd have omitted the surface temperature entirely and been satisfied with saying "it's touchable" in order to not confuse us poor liberal arts majors.
Big Bird, you are right, 100 centigrade is equivalent to boiling water. I would never hold my finger in boiling water as it is burning hot. That, however, doesn't discredit the effectiveness of the aerogel. It is an amazing insulator. My only question though is that aerogel is also an amazingly fragile material and I would like to see how they make it bendable so it can be rolled out without cracking it and rendering its insulating properties useless.
It's likely they went for 'the limit'. If anything it showed just how much cooler that surface was. Perhaps the flame wasn't 1000 degrees C but hey, try doing that with anything else.
Another note on aerogels is that they're INCREDIBLY lightweight. At 90% void (air) you're looking at mere ounces for a cubic foot of this stuff. It's really quite amazing. And despite this, they're also incredibly strong, so there are potentials beyond insulation as well. Carbon fiber feels like cement compared to this stuff (not to mention that carbon fiber, though strong, is very brittle while aerogels can be quite flexible).
if anyone wants to try it out you can buy areogel samples online for around $30. I bought some a few years ago and its really crazy to handle.
It looks like 2010 is the year where aerogel really starts coming to market.
I know you can buy solid aerogel samples at buyaerogel.com for about $35, and that you can also get insulation and little granules there too, if anyone is looking.
Touching the 100˙ celsius surface is possible because the product has a very low rate of heat transfer. It's like the difference between picking up a piece of wood in the hot sun, and picking up a chunk of steel that was also in the sun.