Hear about aerogel, it's easy to mistake it for an adhesive.
In fact, aerogels are neither glue nor viscous, and their name originated from gel materials. The jelly we are familiar with is a typical gel.
Aerogel is a magical material that was born in a bet. Samuel Stephens Kistler to bet with Charles Learned that the liquid in the gel should be replaced with gas and the overall structure should be kept intact without collapse. This was a dream at that time.
What is unexpected is that in 1931, Professor Kistler used the supercritical drying method to successfully remove the liquid from the gel, and the world's first aerogel was born. Professor Kistler became a "aerogel" in his published paper ".
Aerogel is a compound word, aero is an adjective, meaning flying, and gel is gel. The literal meaning can be translated as, flying gel.
In the middle and late 1990 s, with the emergence and development of atmospheric pressure drying technology, the preparation methods of aerogels were also expanded. The definition of aerogel generally accepted by the scientific community is: no matter what kind of drying method is used, as long as the liquid in the wet gel is replaced by gas, while the network structure of the gel remains basically unchanged, the resulting material is called aerogel.
The liquid component is replaced by gas aerogel, the porosity is as high as 99% or more. It is a three-dimensional porous material composed of nano-pores and nano-framework.
