NASA researchers replace silica with polymers to create more flexible aerogels
(Phys.org)—Back in the early thirties, the story goes, a couple of unknown chemists set about betting one another as to whether they could remove the water from a jelly that had been gelled with pectin, without causing the jelly to shrink. The resultant efforts produced what are known today as aerogels, sometimes referred to as liquid smoke because of their very low densities. Chemists have produced them by mixing silica based materials with water, then removing the water via supercritical drying. Unfortunately, the material produced is very brittle and thus easily broken which limits its use. Because of this researchers at NASA's Glenn Research Center looked to polymers (types of plastics) to see if a new type of aerogel could be created that would be less brittle.