The Blog

UPDATE: BuyAerogel.com and AerogelTechnologies.com are back online! If you are still having difficulty placing an order, you can email aerogeltechnologies@gmail.com and someone will help you.

Aerogel Technologies was recently featured in an awesome viral video about aerogels on YouTuber Derek Muller’s Veritasium channel.  Unfortunately, the millions-of-views-per-day popularity of the video crippled the Aerogel Tech and BuyAerogel.com servers for everybody looking for aerogel samples!  In the mean time, anyone interested in buying an aerogel sample can email aerogeltechnologies@gmail.com and someone will reach out to you when the servers are back up.  To make up for the epic fail, anybody who emails requesting a sample before June 2, 2019 will get a coupon for 10% off their order*. You can browse select aerogel sample products on the Aerogel Technologies Instagram and Twitter feeds @aerogeltech as well! #hugofdeath #wompwomp

*Except for cut-size-blankets, Enova products, or Bottled Sky artwork products.

Researchers at Boston-based Aerogel Technologies, LLC have developed a new technique that, for the first time, enables production of aerogel parts with plastic-like durability in theoretically unlimited dimensions.  This new approach opens the possibility of using aerogels for a wide range of new applications at price points that the company projects will soon be cost-competitive with performance plastics like polycarbonate.

Aerogels are traditionally made using a technique called supercritical drying—a high-pressure process also used in decaffeinating coffee and green dry cleaning performed in expensive stainless steel reactors.  But just as a pizza is limited to the size of an oven, to date aerogels have been limited to size of the supercritical dryers used to make them, meaning parts no bigger than about 60 cm x 60 cm.  This has greatly limited potential applications and has made scaling production extremely costly.  Using their new technique, which the company calls the Stelmakh process, Aerogel Technologies has produced a whopping 90 cm x 90 cm aerogel panel, making it the world’s largest aerogel to date.  The aerogel, made of a proprietary polymer, weighed in at an impressive 7x lighter than typical plastics.  Unlike traditional aerogel production, the new manufacturing technique developed by Aerogel Technologies is performed at ambient conditions eliminating the need for a pressure vessel and enabling production of aerogel parts of theoretically unlimited dimensions.  Aerogel Technologies is already producing 30 cm panels using this technology available for purchase at pre-scale prices through their website BuyAerogel.com.  The company is currently scaling the process to produce panels up to 2 m x 3 m in thicknesses up to 5 cm.

World’s largest aerogel to date made using new drying technology invented by Aerogel Technologies, LLC.

The Fourth International Seminar on Aerogels will be held this September 24-26 in Hamburg, Germany at the Hamburg University of Technology.  This is the fourth installment of this conference series and last time had over 175 attendees.  This year promises to be even bigger and better and will showcase the latest in the rapidly growing field of aerogels.

For more information visit the official conference site below.

http://www.aerogel.org/community/seminar2018/

Hamburg University of Technology where the Fourth International Seminar on Aerogels will be held September 24-26 , 2018 in Hamburg, Germany.

People have been hearing about mechanically strong aerogels such as x-aerogels and strong organic aerogels like polyimide aerogels along with all of their promise for use as ultralightweight structures, dust-free superinsulation, and science-fiction-y applications for some time now.   Small samples of strong aerogels have been commercially available for the past couple years, but nothing much bigger than the size of a playing card, or the back panel of a Google Nexus 7 tablet, meaning there has not been a whole lot of movement using these materials for improving building efficiency, making ultralight cars, or building what we all really care about deep down inside, flying cars and hoverboards–applications where ultralight materials could have a significant on reducing carbon dioxide emissions and saving fuel costs.

One-foot (30-cm) Airloy X103 strong aerogel panel balancing a PTFE plastic tile of the same mass. Image courtesy Aerogel Technologies.

Well good news.  Aerogel Technologies today announced that they are now manufacturing large (one-foot, 30-cm) panels on its new pilot line, and that these panels are soon to be followed by even larger panels.  The company plans to market these materials as lightweight replacements for plastics for use anywhere weight and cost are coupled, for example, in cars, planes, and refrigerated trucks.

Strong aerogel panels made of Airloy X103, a high-strength organic aerogel that is stable to about 80°C, are being made available on BuyAerogel.com.  Other formulations including new high-temperature Airloy X114 are soon to follow.

Visit BuyAerogel.com to buy large Airloy panels now.

Aerogel Technologies has released a new high-temperature, high-strength machinable aerogel material called Airloy X114 which is stable up to 300°C and has the strength and durability of a plastic but is three times lighter.  They’re apparently good at sound damping too.  Aerogel Technologies says applications include insulating engine compartments, ovens,, and rocket parts.  Samples of Airloy X114 are available for purchase on BuyAerogel.com.

Airloy X114 high-temperature strong aerogel from Aerogel Technologies goes up to 300°C, is strong like a plastic, and three times lighter than plastic.

The team at Lukla Apparel has just launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for their new aerogel jackets.  Lighter and less bulky than traditional aerogel jackets, their Endeavor jacket was designed for back-country skiing, which has high technical demands and in which people need to keep warm and comfortable for long periods of time.  I had the chance to talk with the Lukla team recently and they’ve done some great work looking at how to integrate aerogel blankets into an aerogel jacket while still making it comfortable, not dusty, and washable.  Check out their Kickstarter campaign and help them raise $100,000.

Amusing story on Popsci.com–when NASA launched its Stardust probe, the satellite that followed comet Wild-2 (say “Vilt-Too”) and captured its comet dust with a “catcher’s mitt” made of aerogel, they had no way to extract the comet particles from the aerogel.  Silica aerogels like the ones used on the Stardust probe are extremely brittle and machining it using normal techniques causes it to fracture unpredictably.  I can corroborate this–at one point before Stardust returned, NASA reached out to me personally (as they did many aerogel researchers) to ask if I had any experience cutting aerogels!  All’s well that ends well–the ingenious team at NASA developed a method using a high-frequency vibrating microscopic needle to extract the comet particles from the aerogel in time to make use of the samples that were returned, making Stardust one of the most successful sample return missions of all time.

We had the chance to sit down for a podcast several years ago with the mission’s PI, NASA JPL’s Dr. Peter Tsou.  Listen to the amazing story of Stardust here.

Just a quick update from NYSE-Euronext on the Aspen Aerogels IPO–looks like Aspen Aerogels is planning on raising $115M, offering 6.7M shares at a price of $14-$16/share.

Read more about it here.

For everyone who still thinks aerogels are blue and brittle, think again!  The engineers at Aerogel Technologies have recently released a video of an ultralight Google Nexus 7 body made out of a mechanically strong aerogel called Airloy X103-H.  In the video, they compare the back panel of the Nexus 7, composed of ABS/PC composite (that’s acrylonitrile butadiene styrene/polycarbonate composite, the standard non-descript plastic used to make laptop bodies and other consumer electronics) weighing in at 42 g, and the same panel made out of Airloy X103-H, weighing in at only 18 g. And this isn’t 1980’s aerogel either–it’s strong, somewhat flexible, and feels like plastic.  Take a look!

Exciting news in the aerogel industry! Aspen Aerogels, the world’s leading manufacturer of aerogel insulation, has filed for an initial public offering of its common stock.  Aspen, which expects to trade under the stock symbol “ASPN” on the New York Stock Exchange, is looking to raise a maximum of $86.25M with this initial offering.  Aspen’s aerogel blankets are unparalleled in the industry and are widely recognized as the world’s best thermal insulation next to vacuum insulating panels, however unlike VIPs Aspen’s blankets aren’t susceptible to popping, are flexible, and can be easily cut and sewn.  Aspen’s products include Pyrogel XT-E, a flexible high-temperature insulating blanket used to insulate pipelines in refineries, Cryogel Z, a superinsulating blanket used for cryogenic tanks, and Spaceloft, a superinsulating blanket used for building and construction.   Spaceloft, for example, has an R-value greater than 9.5 per inch, making it over three times better insulating per unit thickness than fiberglass and almost two times better insulating than polyurethane foam. This isn’t the first time Aspen’s filed for an IPO.  Aspen originally filed for an IPO on June 24, 2011 with the intent of raising $115M on the NASDAQ exchange, later retracted the filing, possibly due to an unfortunate coincident global downturn in construction.  However, with the economy recovering and Aspen’s products being increasingly adopted, now is the perfect time for an Aspen IPO.  Aspen reports that 24 of the world’s top 25 refineries use their products, an economic case that is not hard to understand.  Incredibly, today only 20% of pipelines in refineries are insulated–in an industry where energy = $ this is a pretty astounding figure!  The reason being, however, is that traditional insulation is very difficult to install and maintain.  Fiberglass, for example, entrains moisture underneath causing corrosion of the underlying pipe (corrosion under insulation or CUI) and can be easily damaged when walked on.  Aspen’s products are hydrophobic, meaning they repel water, eliminating CUI.  Additionally, their materials are quite sturdy and resistant to compression, and, unlike foams, don’t crush and lose their insulating ability when walked on.

Aspen won’t be the only public company manufacturing aerogels–Cabot Corporation (NYSE:CBT) also manufactures aerogel materials in both particle and insulating blanket form.  Cabot’s and Aspen’s products are quite different, however, and provide complementary functions for different applications.  Regardless, with Aspen joining the ranks of other publicly-traded companies, it is an exciting time for the commercialization of aerogel.

Read the S-1 filing here.  Try Aspen’s products out yourself here.