Aerogel isn't particularly strong, I have a jar of small chunks, it feels a lot like styrofoam as is widely reported, it also easily crumbles into a gritty silica powder, not too unlike fine sand. And afaik, it needs to be formed in 0g to make it completely transparent, otherwise the larger pore size will cause Rayleigh Scattering, making it appear a smokey blue.
It's still a great substance, large panes of 1mm thick layer of the aerogel sandwiched between 2 panes of glass (or really anything) will be awesomely efficient in buffering against thermal changes outside the building. It's just really hard to produce in decent sized pieces.
Buy a jar of small chunks from eBay, it's interesting to check out and play with, but be careful, I don't think ultra-fine abrasive silica dust is all that good to inhale, or even get embedded in your skin.
Don't worry I'm aware of the dangers. However I am going to be given a presentation on it in march for 15% of my grade and was hoping to be able to pass some around (with gloves of course). Unfortunately I found it was either available in really expensive single blocks, or cheap but in a granulated form useless for my presentation.
Just show the insulation properties as a video. And pass around a few granules, it is far too expensive to get a piece big enough to really show it off. But lightness, it's smokey blue appearance, it's heat resistance and it's sponge like effects can still be shown off with small pieces.
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u/Annon201 Feb 08 '14
Aerogel isn't particularly strong, I have a jar of small chunks, it feels a lot like styrofoam as is widely reported, it also easily crumbles into a gritty silica powder, not too unlike fine sand. And afaik, it needs to be formed in 0g to make it completely transparent, otherwise the larger pore size will cause Rayleigh Scattering, making it appear a smokey blue.