New Atlas

Materials Audio available

Ultra-light ceramic aerogel stands up to intense temperature swings

Michael Irving February 17, 2019

Ceramic aerogels are incredibly light and can withstand intense heat. The problem is they can be pretty brittle. Now, a team has developed a new ceramic aerogel that’s far hardier and more flexible, even after repeated exposure to wild temperature swings.

Samples of the new ceramic aerogel, which is incredibly lightweight and can withstand intense heat fluctuations

Materials Audio available

World-first aerogel is made from plastic bottles, and has many potential uses

Ben Coxworth November 2, 2018

Pop bottles are one of the most common types of plastic waste, so the more ways that we can find of recycling them, the better. With that in mind, researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed an inexpensive method of converting such bottles into a very useful aerogel.

The process, which is said to be easily scalable for mass production, can produce an A4-paper-sized ...

Materials

New 3D printing process paints graphene aerogel in far finer detail

Michael Irving August 23, 2018

Graphene is famous as a two-dimensional material, but to really make the most of the stuff we need to coax it back into 3D forms. Now researchers from Virginia Tech have developed a new way to 3D print graphene aerogels with a far higher resolution than previously possible.

A 3D-printed piece of graphene aerogel, that's so light it can balance on top of a ...

Materials Audio available

Transparent insulating aerogel brewed up from beer by-product

Michael Irving August 13, 2018

Aerogels are among the best thermal insulators, but their cloudy appearance doesn't work for windows, one of the worst offenders for letting heat escape a building. Now, researchers at Colorado University Boulder have found a way to make them transparent, recycling a beer by-product in the process.

Researcher Qingkun Liu holds up samples of the new transparent aerogel, which could make windows better ...

Materials

Cotton waste converted into eco-friendly aerogel

Ben Coxworth February 14, 2018

Scientists from the National University of Singapore have found a new use for cotton-based fabric waste – they've devised a method of converting it into an aerogel. Among other things, the ultralight material could be used to keep water bottles cold, and to control bleeding from deep wounds.

The cotton aerogel has been used to make canteen-insulating jackets and injectable capsules that stop wounds ...

Materials

Aerogel-filled bricks are great at insulating, but not on the cheap

Ben Coxworth January 16, 2018

Why bother adding a layer of insulation to a brick wall, if you can just build that wall using hollow bricks that are stuffed with insulation? That's the thinking behind bricks which incorporate materials such as perlite. Now, scientists have created the best-insulating brick yet, using aerogel.

The aerobricks are simply ordinary hollow clay bricks, filled with an aerogel paste

Outdoors

Review: Oros' aerogel-insulated cold weather gear

Aaron Turpen January 29, 2017

Those of us who live and seek adventure in cold weather are familiar with the various thermal technologies available. With Oros, something is different. It's lightweight, thin, and yet warmer than many other options we've owned thanks to the use of NASA-inspired aerogel.

Oros' NASA-inspired winter gear copes well with chicken feeding duties in the depths of a Wyoming ...

Energy

Perovskite combination rivals silicon solar cell efficiency

Colin Jeffrey November 9, 2016

Scientists have created a solar cell of mutiple layers of different perovskite materials that has a claimed a peak efficiency of 26 percent. And can usefully convert light energy over much greater parts of the spectrum than standard silicon solar cells.

The hybrid photovoltaic cell has a claimed efficiency of 21.7 percent, already better than the 10 ...

Materials

Paper waste converted into eco-friendly aerogel

Ben Coxworth February 5, 2016

Known as "frozen smoke" because of their milky translucent appearance, aerogels are among the world's lightest solid materials. Now, scientists at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have used paper waste to create one.

Science

Graphene aerogel takes world’s lightest material crown

Darren Quick March 24, 2013

A new graphene aerogel created at China's Zhejiang University is the world's lightest material, with a density of 0.16 mg/cm3.

The graphene aerogel can be supported by blades of grass