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The Amazing Properties of Aerogel
RideMax writes "We all know NASA is using a substance called 'aerogel' in the Stardust spacecraft to catch pieces of the Wild-2 comet. The NYT is running an article about some other amazing aerogel properties. My favorite quote: 'It's the lowest density of any solid, and it has the highest thermoinsulation properties. Though it would be very expensive, you could take a two- or three-bedroom house, insulate it with aerogel, and you could heat the house with a candle. But eventually the house would become too hot.'" We've looked at Aerogel before.
I'm just curious as to what the R-factor would be. The article does not specify this.
What if it was only used to certain walls where leakage was most common?
Or perhaps to insulate between windowpanes? Since it's more or less transparent, it'll let the light in, but not heat out...
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
Hell, having a person in the house for an extended amount of time would make it too hot to be comfortable.
What I have not seen is the application in areas that weight would make a difference, cars, planes, and maybe even clothes.
In clothes, you can have the equivlent in a down jacket in the thinkness of a windbreaker. It would be light as a feature, and not be subject do damage by exteme normal wear.
Of course, everyone on
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I think one of the properties of proper insulation is that it can keep heat OUT, not just in.
... and you have the best air conditioning on the planet. In theory.
Take the candle from the example in the story, and replace it with a block of ice
Powder is cheap, but the bulk aerogel made from it is a little bit of a trick.
Iron is pretty cheap too, but a single perfect crystal of appreciable size starts to make Platinum look positively affordable. Or graphite to diamond.
It's not so much the atoms that make many things expensive so much as how they're put together.
Insulation isnt really the problem anyway. It's easy to make a house you could heat with a candle. Modern houses in countries with cold winters have triple glazing and good insulation, with negligable heat loss through windows and walls.
The problem is ventilation. Even apart from the issue that you'd suffocate, houses that are too insulated are almost guaranteed get mold problems. You need a constant airflow, and that's where you get the major heat loss. Of course, various techniques like heat exchangers exist to ameliorate this, but unfortunately the technology for 100% efficiency is not quite there yet.
If vacuum was an insulator, we wouldn't get any heat from the sun. Now THAT would suck.
"Would you, could you, with a goat?" Dr Seuss
R-invisibility cloak. Just wear it and be hidden from all IR eyes in the sky... neat.#
Just wear it and burn to death within an hour more like.
You could always fill your pants with dry ice before putting it on, that might buy you another hour.
Ok, I'll bite.
- That piece is 16 in^3. Thus, it's about $60.94 per cubic inch.
- Let's take a 16'x16' room -- not a bad size for a living room or such. 16'x16' is 192"x192".
- Figure our 2x4 studs are 16" on center. That makes for 12 stud spaces (the space between studs) in a wall, or 48 stud spaces for the room (this room has no doors, windows, etc.)
- That makes the space between studs (ignoring the size of the stud itself) as being 84x4x16 or 5,376 in^3.
- 5,376 times 48 is 258,048 in^3.
- Aerogel insulation at $60.94 a cubic inch for 258,048 cubic inches is $15,725,445.12.
Insulating a house could get pricey in a hurry!Blog,Twitter