Anyways Aerogel.org goes into depth on how to make aerogel and build a useful supercritical dryer: http://www.aerogel.org/?cat=10

Aerogel is typically very transparent in the visible and infrared, less so in UV due to Rayleight scattering.

Aerogel is like florists foam to the touch, and you will leave nasty finger prints on it just by touching it, if you press hard enough you will make a dent, and harder it will break. It is very brittle, if dropped from even a small height it will shatter. Would make a terrible bike frame.

Aerogel is no more toxic than glass, you should avoid inhaling glass dust and eating it although it probably wouldn’t kill you.

Normal aerogel is hyrophillic and gets destroyed when contacted with water, however it can be made hydrophobic with post-processing or with a different precursor chemical

Aspen Aerogels add in some plastic or something to make it bendy, and have some cool names for it like Pyrogel!

Aerogel is not a closed structure as it has open pores through which gas can diffuse. I think it takes ~1ms for gas to diffuse through 1mm of aerogel.

I don’t think the child was achieving anything that NASA could not, as this was the first way in which aerogels were created. Nasa have created massive blocks for comet dust collection.

I’d like to line my house with this stuff, but not if it’s gonna take a hundred years to make enough, or if all I get are little blobs I have to super glue together. And how would I hang them in place in the wall hollows, with a simple drill, or do I need a phaser pistol?

I don’t mean to be rude or an ingrate, but serious minds need to know such things.

Can it be doped with other chems during fabrication to make it more flexible? Again, toxicity? Does anybody out there know?

If aerogel is fragile, why are the Israelis contemplating using it as a bullet proofing in vests? They said it the vest is fairly flexible but it doesn’t breathe well and gets unbearably hot inside.

I’m getting differing opinions. Need facts from someone who’s touched it.

Thanks

http://adzoe.8m.com/sf2002full.html

He made the raw gels and the alcohol baths. I tightened the larger fittings because even with a 30″ pipe wrench pair he was not strong enough to seal them. He did the work of temperature control with both ice in the first stage and hot water in the second. Ice had to be applied a few times each hour, and hot water every few minutes to keep the temperatures first below then later above the required levels. William did all the work at every stage. I, however, also had to loosen the large pipe fittings after the process was completed. Then William had fun spraying the remaining CO2 all over the yard, freezing weeds, and having fun.
I am not a college graduate, William’s guardian is now 85 years old and lives in a hodgepodge of an old house.
In conclusion, while we collaborated on the design of the project, and I did the things not allowed for a minor, or that were physically beyond his strength, William did this project. He had technical assistance from the University of Virginia, Aspen Aerogels, U Cal Berkeley, and NASA employees.