APR 09

Aerogel has been around for decades. It's the lightest substance ever created, being 99% air. It's strong, light, translucent and is excellent for sound-proofing. But the really exciting thing about aerogel is that it insulates 37 times better than fiberglass. Using aerogel as insulation in walls, ceilings, and (as it's transparent) even between double-pained windows, could drastically reduce the amount of energy used in heating and cooling.

Unfortunately, aerogel isn't easy to make. In fact, it costs about $1,300 per pound to produce. But a Malaysian researcer at the Universiti Teknologi, Dr. Halimaton Hamdan, has led a team of researchers who have created a way to produce aerogel that will be 80% cheaper.

What's more, the new aerogel is produced from rice husks, a discarded agricultural product. As you might expect, Malaysia has plenty of rice husks, so they're pretty excited about the possibility of turning them into something valuable. As such, the government has given Hamdan a $65 M grant to help develop a technique for the large-scale production of the new aerogels.

Hamdan's breakthrough was at first accidental. She wanted to do research on silica, but was having a hard time finding the raw material. One night, she saw a television program on the difficulty of disposing of rice husks. And rice husks, it turns out, are 20% silica. After eight years of work, Hamdan finally found a cheap way to produce pure silica from rice husks. And once the silica is acquired, making the aerogel is a cinch.

If Dr. Hamdan and her colleagues are able to use that $65 M to scale up production of this material, we should soon be seeing it everywhere. If that happens, the energy savings would be incredible. As a bonus; the production of Maerogel (short for Malaysian Aerogel) would also make use of an abundant natural waste product.

Comments (17)

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written by Magnus H., April 09, 2008

This is awesome! I've been waiting for aerogel to come to market since I saw it on Discovery's Beyond 2000 aaaages ago! How much would you say a pound of aerogel actually amounts to?
I'm no good with numbers, but could you take that 99% air number and assume that a pound of aerogel would amount to about one hundred litres of the stuff, if one were to count in litres?

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written by andi, April 09, 2008

Yes how much can you do with one pound of this thing. I assume a lot. So 300$ which would be the new price of one pound is actually cheap isn't it.

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written by capncaveman, April 09, 2008

Wikipedia gives a density of 1.9 mg/cm^3 for aerogel. Assuming this is correct that translates to about .12 lbs/ft^3. That would mean about 8 cubic feet of aerogel per pound. That honestly seems a high price to pay compared with the cost of fiberglass insulation. But obviously one would have to study if the initial investment would pay off over the lifetime of the product.

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it's better than fiberglass
written by Alex, April 09, 2008

capncaveman - aerogel is so much better than fiberglass. It can have as much as 10x lower thermal conductivity, so you need less volume of it to do the same job. And it's nearly clear, so in some cases you can even use it in windows. The real prize would be if you could get rid of that little bit of smoky appearance, then put it in all windows.

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written by capncaveman, April 09, 2008

I'm not quite sure... I love the idea of aerogel replacing fiberglass, but I'm still concerned about the economics. These are "back of the envelope" calculations. Let's say that the new aerogel costs roughly $300 / lb. But that aerogel is 37 times more effective than fiberglass. So that would mean the cost of aerogel would drop to roughly $8 per cubic foot to maintain the same effectiveness as fiberglass. On the other side of the equation, I've seen that fiberglass costs approximately $0.50 per square foot per inch thick. That would be roughly $6 per cubic foot. I think aerogel would have a tough time competing against that. But I'm very excited by this news and I hope that if enough interest is generated by this then manufacturing costs may be driven down and we have a win-win situation here.

Oh... just in case I screwed up any of the math, I apologize beforehand. :)

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written by Justin M, April 10, 2008

I got a chance to play with some aerogel a while ago to demonstrate to kids. The stuff is crazy. We were taking a blow torch to it, getting it red hot, but cool on the other side. It's hard to describe just how light the stuff is. Even though a pound costs a lot, a pound would be huge.

The only bad thing about the aerogel I had was how brittle it was. When it breaks it goes into sharp pieces that are sort of like sticky, sharp fiberglass that gets into you skin.

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written by haichen, April 10, 2008

I thaught about making super insulated fridges. If you have a fridge 200*50*50 cm and if the insulater would have a thickness of 1 cm, you need 85,5 g Aerogel and so that would cost roundabout 50$.

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written by Magnus H., April 10, 2008

Wow, if those calculations are correct, that's simply brilliant! I could definitely pay 25-40 GBPs extra for a super-insulated fridge. And it doesn't stop there. Think about using it in thermoses or thermo-cups (I use those a LOT, myself) or thermal bags! Heck, it could probably be fashioned in such a way that it'd be usable in sleeping bags, too.

So maybe the economics of aerogel isn't quite there yet for housing (At least for us mere mortals without gold-plated bathrooms, not that I'd ever have one! Ew!) but I think it's probably perfect for a lot of smaller products.

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written by creatinglake, April 10, 2008

Well, I was really excited about this innovation, bringing the price of aeorgel down until I looked on wikipedia and saw that at best it has an r factor of 105 for 3.5 inches compared to an r 13 for fiberglass. That, from what I can tell, is less than 10 times more insulative than fiberglass, not 37 times, bringing the cost to insulation value to 4 times what this article is claiming. Please let me know if I am wrong, I hope that I am.

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written by Lauren, April 10, 2008

Here's a video explainer we did on aerogel:

http://www.kqed.org/quest/television/view/776

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written by Jim, April 11, 2008

While it is exciting to see further developments in aerogel technology there are already sources available for commercial aerogel at a fraction of the costs this "rice husk" technolgy represents.

According to the Malasian release on this developent the cost to produce the material = $600 kg. While this is lower than historic aerogels, it is still very high when compared to Nanogel Aerogel which is alread in the market made by Cabot Corporation. There are also numerous commercial building products being manufactured already and a big pipeline or further developments in the pipeline. Check it out! www.nanogel.com

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written by Nephtali, April 11, 2008

Research for the win !

Nuff respect to researchers for work for progress ;)

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written by Boudewijn, April 14, 2008

Is there anything known about what happens with the product after its been used and thrown away? Is it recyclable?

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Mr.
written by Paul Smith, April 17, 2008

We are likely talking about different qualities here. Nanogel is particulate and 95% air. Also the price listed could be for product other than pure aerogel. Aspen aerogel make material imbeded with particulate aerogel used in winter clothing, oil pipe insulation etc.

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Aerogel
written by Matt, April 20, 2008

Ive had about a pound of aerogel since about 1998 or 1999. One of my dads friend works at the nevada test site and he had to do a presentation with it back then and after he gave it to my dad. Since then the huge block has been crushed numerous times and given away to friends but i still have about a cup full of tiny fragments and powder. Anyone know how much this stuff cost back in 1999? :- Ide assume the stuff i had was of the highest quality as to it came from the nevada test site and didn't have much of the blue hue that the aerogel's pictured have

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Bring it on!
written by Bring it on., September 08, 2008

I can't wait for a usable product at a reasonable cost.

I view the use of aerogel as window material as the greatest potential. Because so much of it is brittle it would have to be sandwiched, and also used in applications were light is needed but views are not.

I wouldn't object to all but one or two windows in my home being of aerogel for the energy savings. Bring it on.

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Can you make aerogel from pumice?
written by Henry Kroll, February 07, 2009

I re-discovered aerogel in a reound-about-way by doing a web search on NAZI lying saucers. It said the hulls were made of victalen. I did a dearch on victalen and aerogel and rozen smoke came up.

I am interested in purchasing a pumice mine in California to make kitty litter and light, fire-resistant products.

It seems to me that fire-resistant dome homes made of light pumice helicoptered into place would be valuable in Caliornia where people losing their homes to fires every year. It would also slow down the arsonists. (I could use a partner with some money.)

I printed off many articles on aerogel and and am still looking for economical ways to make it out of silicon. You can contact me at: \n This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it '> This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more information.

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