I got a tshirt and a 3 year old that say I'm the world's coolest dad. :)

Alex7575

I'm confused - exposed to air wouldn't it just pull h2o out of the air and become heavy? Also, i regret that i'm not the world's coolest anything...

leaverus

@cowpop: considering it pulls moisture out of pretty much anything I think it would literally suck.

Boognish

Imagine girls using an aerogel dildo, that'd freak'em out lol. Though I really want to touch this stuff myself to feel what it feels like.

cowpop

I'm the worlds coolest...wait no I'm not...:(

CrashOverride777

aerogel is like 15 years old, developed for the 'stardust' comet dust spacecraft launched in 1999 lols.

pizzlepaps

@cowpop:

I wonder about that.. the guy states that it can suck the moisture out of your hand.. in that case.. what would a aerogel dildo wind up doing...?

Mith

Must have some...order on the way.

rrogahn

i am General DoomHammer... world's coolest BAMF. no i did not assign that name to myself...

Charging_Mooses

I'm probably the world's coolest uncool person.

I suspect that's somewhat akin to being the world's tallest midget, but let's ignore that for now...

dc-united

@Alex7575: LOL

MastaFalse

Of course it's a great insulator, it's full of air. It's like a sponge made of smoke. I saw this on an old Discovery Channel show, I think from the UK, 'Just for the Record' or something like that... (Supposedly it was edible too) I'm super jealous.

MagnoliaBoy

@MagnoliaBoy:
An empty wall is full of air too, but it's not a great insulator, we put insulation in there. Why?

Elliuotatar

@pizzlepaps: nobody ever said it was new, its jsut sweet

shorty6049

@Duckspwn: lol. Stephen Tyler passes it out to groupies back stage after a gig.

SlinkyDink

I am the world's coolest person sitting at my desk at this particular moment.

SlinkyDink

Aerogel sounds like a sex lube to me. Kinda like Astroglide.

Duckspwn

But fiberglass isn't hydrophilic. If this stuff attracts moisture, it's not suitable for housing insulation, unfortunately.

dagwud

@ab3: ok my english is a little screwing the middle of that but you get the idea

ab3

@Elliuotatar: Because insulation creates thousands of little air bubbles, trapping the air in a very small space which prevents the cooler air near the exterior wall to not mix with the warm air on the interior wall. (assuming its cold and your heating your house, obviously its the other way around in the summer)

ab3

An empty wall full of air would be a good insulator if it wasn't for convection currents in that air, so you stuff the wall full of something that is just dense enough to prevent the air from moving around but the result is still mostly air, something like spun fibreglass. The fibreglass itself isn't that great an insulator, it's the trapped air that does most of the R-factor heavy lifting.

bytepusher

@Kingteddybear: When all else fails, wiki my friend: [en.wikipedia.org]

rockntrumpet

Ok posted to quick got my answer here:
[www.unitednuclear.com]
there is a link to a msds sheet at the bottom of the page.

Kingteddybear

Why would it pull moisture out of his fingers? Is it the property of the component material(s) or a physical property of the mechanical structure?

Kingteddybear

@dagwud: True, but maybe if it were wrapped in something impermeable.

Anyway, the real question is, how does it compare to using Peeps for all this kind of stuff?

[www.peepresearch.org]

Eltigro

I just checked the pricing... for a quarter size chunk, that shit costs $45 (and yet I am still considering buying it). That block Jason has got there probably cost a week's wages.

Duckspwn

Imagine if this stuff was cheap to buy! It could make a really light bean bag chair or a really cool igloo or a deprivation chamber that doesn't need piano movers to relocate.

fluf

@ultimpsycho: 3 times the weight of air, so, yeah, I'm guessing it'll drop. Though Newton's law of gravity applies to everything, regardless of how much it weighs..but I split hairs..

rockntrumpet

@Mith: make everything dry up and hurt like hell, duh. this stuff would be fun to play with for a while... like a week or so. I want to drop it off a building. Does Newton's law of gravity apply to this or no?

ultimpsycho

@ultimpsycho:
Newton's law applies to everything that has mass, including oxygen. A material that could violate that law would not exist inside this universe under normal circumstances.

thelifeabundant

@shorty6049:

maybe he thinks he's the only one who know how to use wiki

bookmark

Check it:

[www.kqed.org]

ibelli

Last time I checked, my poop is the lightest solid.........waste.

Ken_Darrow

@dagwud: packaged fiberglass insulation may not be hydrophilic, but glass fibers by themselves ARE hydrophilic; it's surface chemistry. the polar silicon dioxide molecules at the surface of the glass fiber are wetted by polar water molecules - the very definition of hydrophilic.

technically, aerogel is hygroscopic, not hydrophilic. hydrophilic refers to solid (non-porous) surfaces which are wetted by water; hygroscopic refers to surfaces which absorb moisture from the air and other objects. google it.

this aerogel stuff (technically, it's not a gel but a foam with pores on the nanometer scale) is hygroscopic because it's made of a hydrophilic material (silicon dioxide) and because it's nanoscopically porous - it has a rediculously high surface area/volume ratio, which basically means there's more surface area in contact with the air and so more water molecules can adsorb onto the surface.

sorry for the lecture, but i'm a materials scientist by training.

brian s.

Well that shut everyone up.

PastorDoodah

@Boognish:
Don't forget that there is such a thing as lamination.

DisposableInterloper

@brian s.: And furthermore, it's not cost-efficient, so, technically, we're talking vaporware.

Hvedhrungr

@brian s.: But where does it sit on the Deliciousness Index, Mr. Smarty Pants?

bobdobbs

Wait.. how is this stuff different from Magic Eraser?

zenmoused

Yeah, this stuff is pretty sweet. I've had a little hands-on times with it myself. My dad is in architectural sales and they use it as an insulator in skylight and window applications. He had little sample vials of it laying around as demonstrations for customers and stuff, so we've done our fair share of screwing around with it. If you drop a few little cubes into your hands, crush it, and spread it on your hands, your hands will be mildly waterproof. Any water dropped into your palm beads up and moves around like mercury droplets. Also, we put a bunch into some tervis tumbler cups and increased its insulating properties. As a sidenote, aerogel by default is very hydrophilic, since it is like a sponge, but can be easily treated to be extremely hydrophobic. I hope that clears some stuff up.

cferrell

I already posted a comment, but it didn't stick. Anyway, I instantly recognized this photo as being from unitednuclear.com. They have all sorts of neat stuff I've been looking to buy. They have uranium glass marbles which fluoresce under UV light, and are slightly radioactive, as well as a whole bunch more stuff. I don't work for them or anything, but I've been looking to buy some of their wares. Check your local laws before buying!

thebackwash

Call me a freaky terrible person, but I instantly recognized that picture as being from unitednuclear.com. You can buy all sorts of weird and wonderful things there, as well as some radioactive substances, if that's your bag. They even have uranium glass marbles which are radioactive and fluoresce under UV light. Check your local laws before buying!

thebackwash

Interesting, but I was a little disappointed in his presentation. Only one grainy video? I've always wanted to see someone throw a block of this in the air so I can get a sense of its weight. Seeing a photo of it does nothing for me - it could weigh as much as a block of uranium for all I can tell.

bilups

Hi everyone. I had a large block (as big as two golfballs) that was about $100 two years ago. The experiments (about 50 total) were carefully constructed in order of destruction, so I could do the optical ones without any problems at all and then move on to water, strength, etc. I still ended up needing another small chunk ($45) and then the granular stuff, which is the size of one of those quaker oats cardboard cans, which was $35. At least the last one was cheap, and I honestly think people could use it for their applications. You've just got to be creative with it. I have a lot left so I ordered some nomex fabric and thread ($30) and will be making indestructible pot holders with aerogel inside them. :-)

@brian s.:the problem is it collapses when water hits it so they've got a way of making it repel water, but I couldn't do it at home for the life of me. Any ideas? Rain-X and ScotchGuard didn't work. There's a way of covering an object with liquid in a container by vacuum but I stopped short of it thinking home users probably needed an easier way.

re: the discussion on air above: you can get an idea the effect of currents on #8 on the temp page. One was the Tupperware without the box (completely exposed to the house's air), one with the box taped up tight, and one with the aerogel. The aerogel trapped the air more effectively than even the tape since it prevented air currents within the box.

Really cool stuff. The temp stuff was the hardest till I figured out #7.

jwells

It doesn't weigh anything. Holding it, if it weren't sucking the oil out of your hand (man that got annoying!) you wouldn't notice it. I don't have any large blocks left so I can't create that video for you, but I'm not sure you'll see it as it's so fragile it'd almost certainly break apart when it landed. You can't even grab it without it breaking. I had the block in the container it came in, lined with cotton balls most of the time.

jwells

Expensive? I looked into feasibility of home insulation a while back, and while it wasn't price sensible yet -- you do seem to be able to buy Aerogel in quantities now.

I have no affiliation with these guys, haven't bought from them, and haven't checked them out other than reading on their site a bit.

[www.solar-components.com]

Translucent Aerogel is available in 1 gal. and 5 gal. containers
1 gal. container of Aerogel (.5 lbs.) - $29.00 + $10.00 UPS Shipping
5 gal. container of Aerogel (2.5 lbs.) - $98.00 + $20.00 UPS Shipping

AndrewJayPollack

@Human Bomb: I guess it's used in many practical applications...... :( No mad science there I guess.

Human Bomb

Whatever happened to that foamed steel? I heard that was going to be something awesome!

Human Bomb

According to wikipedia: "Aerogel was first created by Steven Kistler in 1931, as a result of a bet with Charles Learned over who could replace the liquid inside a jam (jelly) jar with gas without causing shrinkage."

And this, boys and girls, is how all true scientific discoveries are made. A bet. Two guys (or gals) have a few brewskis, and then argue over some idea. "No, you can't!" "Yes I can!" "Put up or shutup!" "I've got 50 that says I can!" "Double or nothing?"

OTOH, this will probably be our undoing as a species as well.

(in the near future)

LHC scientist #1, "I bet I can make that black hole ten times the size, and sustain it for ten times as long"

LHC scientist #2, "Bullsh1t! No way. I've got a 50 that say you can't!"

LHC scientist #1, "You're on. Now reach over there and turn that knob up to eleven..."

hypereric

i believe the mythbusters talked about this when they were looking into different types of fire retardent materials for their house surviving a forest fire episode. pretty sweet episode too.

sdsviet

@hypereric: that's almost exactly how I determined the diameter of the pores on the moisture page. I was pissed off about the temp stuff not working and just screwing around. A drop of water had hit it, made a cool "drop" in the block and I figured I'd do water with food dye and try to pull it up via a sponge, which it did but filtered the dye out. Since the goal had been to get the dye into the aerogel I was even more angry... but knew something important had happened.

A little help from MeFi and I had the diameter of the dye molecules and water. Water got through (the lower boundary of the pore sizes) and dye didn't (the upper boundary). The unknown zone between the two is about one nanometer. So I measured the size of the pores to within one nanometer using water, a sponge, and supermarket food dye. Total accident.

jwells

@sdsviet: It was the Smashlab peeps. I tried to, but could not, make myself watch that series. They just don't have the TV presence of the Mythbusters cast.

CSX321

lol..so curious but how much does air weigh?

mricyfire

Oh, on a further note, there are a ton of different ways to manufacture this stuff, with different materials and stuff. Early production methods were unstable and explosion-prone, but its much easier now. Its high cost probably has less to do with its manufacturing cost and more to do with its inherent exotic nature. After all, the industrial applications for a material that is the lightest solid known to man and the best insulator known to man are many. Also, its not unusual for companies to "brand" their aerogel. The company my dad works for calls it "nanagel."

cferrell