Where can I buy Aerogel?

[Plasmech]

OK I guess I'm half joking, or maybe only 25% joking...but has Aerogel gotten to the point where it's anywhere near reasonable as an industrial insulator yet? Does anyone sell it?

 

[ivymike]

by surfing aerogel.com you can find a number of suppliers who work with the material. You may also find ridiculously overpriced samples of it on Ebay.

 

[IRstuff]

You could try this guys:

http://www.unitednuclear.com/aerogel.htm

but they don't supply unitary pieces, though.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[btrueblood]

http://www.litnc.com/aspen.html

 

[MikeHalloran]

Aspen, I think, tried to sell it to me for marine exhaust insulation a couple of years ago. The small sample I got demonstrated that it's flexible enough to conform to compound curved surfaces, and that it drops a fair amount of very fine ceramic dust when you handle it.

The dust made it a non-starter for me; engines don't like dust, and there's no way to encapsulate the aerogel that will reliably withstand exhaust heat.

The other non-starter; they never came back with a price for a sheet of the stuff; they just kept dancing around the issue. Too bad for them; yacht owners will pay big bucks for high tech.





Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[IRstuff]

Yeah, but this is REALLY high bucks. The large blocks run about $2800 per gram. Or, about $4500 per liter:

http://www.mkt-intl.com/aerogels/AerogelOrderForm.PDF

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[MikeHalloran]

I've met guys who wouldn't blink at that price.

.. and I just figured out how to encapsulate the stuff, but not in a way that would allow them to show it off. Sigh.





Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[MikeHalloran]

This article quotes a price that approaches the possible:

http://www.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20021021antarcticsidesci4p4.asp

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[MikeHalloran]

A smart kid can homebrew it:

http://adzoe.8m.com/Aerogelsa.htm

I found that and other sites here:

http://p25ext.lanl.gov/~hubert/aerogel/

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[EngAP]

There are various places you can get it in different forms.

Aspen Aerogels, Cabot Corp, Polyformes, Nanopore are just a few places.

You can get samples for free (a test tube full of particles) from Cabot Corp, Spaceloft blankets from Polyformes for a few dollars per square foot or foil encapsulated blankets.

The Spaceloft blanket does leave a fine dust that dries up oils but in foli encapsulated form it does not.

It depends on the insulating performance you require. Hope this helped.