Aerogels: Production, modification and applications

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Abstract
Aerogels are highly porous, nanostructured sol‐gel derived materials. In the nineteen sixties and seventies highly transparent and monolithic silica aerogels have mainly been used in Cherenkov detectors to determine the momentum of relativistic particles. After an increasing availability of granular SiO2‐aerogels from a BASF pilot plant in the eighties, applications of these materials in solar architecture (especially for daylighting purposes and transparent thermal insulations) have been investigated. Today, additionally research focuses on metalloxide‐, organic‐ and carbon‐aerogels. The applications range from acoustic impedance matching layers in ultrasonic transducers to subtrates for catalytic materials, transparent molds for melt casting, sensors, electrodes in supercapacitors and fuel cells as well as capture of cosmic dust and micrometeorits. Particularly interesting with respect to mass applications is the use of aerogel powder in the evacuated superinsulation of the BMW latent heat storage device which can be employed to defrost the windshield or to preheat the engine. A broad availability of cheap aerogels is expected from a production process based on subcritical drying (versus supercritical extraction in an autoclave) currently persued by Hoechst AG.

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