Aerogel’s Strange Magic
When I was younger I used to fantasize about what falling through a cloud would feel like when I was on an airplane.
Not like I was trying to die in the end or anything, more like just wanting to reach out and grab them.
I blame the Loony Toons and the other cartoons of my childhood for it.
Now, I imagine that feeling again: holding out my hand and imagine catching a cloud.
Not the damp, heavy kind that ruins picnics and parades alike, but a sliver of sky itself, captured into something I can hold.
That’s what I’d imagine aerogel feels like. Nicknamed frozen smoke, it is so light that they say your brain argues with your senses.
It looks solid, it feels present, and yet…it’s almost not there at all.
I’ve always loved the oddities of new materials! Whenever nature and human ingenuity collide to make things that feel impossible it feels like the kind of magic of Harry Potter, brought to life.
Aerogel belongs to that category of “too strange to believe” until you see it with your own eyes.
A Solid That Barely Exists
Aerogel is mostly nothing (just like atoms!).
Seriously though, it’s up to 99.8% its volume is air, trapped inside a strange labyrinth of silica or carbon strands so fine that light itself scatters, giving it an ethereal blue glow.
Think sort of like a spiderweb, except the threads are invisible and woven so tightly they can catch sunlight.
It’s the lightest solid material ever made, lighter than a vanilla bean marshmallow, and lighter than whipped cream. Drop a block in your palm, and you’d swear you’re holding a chunk of nothing, just a cool, ghostly cube with all the density of a daydream.
Picture borrowed from https://www.aerogeltechnologies.com/what-are-aerogels/
Even Used in Space
The story of aerogel starts in the 1930s, when a chemist named Samuel Kistler bet a colleague that he could replace the liquid inside a gel with gas…without the structure collapsing.
He won that bet, but the world didn’t quite know what to do with his invention for decades.
Then came NASA.
Spacecraft needed insulation that could handle extremes: searing heat, freezing cold, micrometeoroids, and even those cosmic rays I love to talk about.
Aerogel fit the bill pretty darn well.
Its porous structure could absorb impacts and trap heat like no other material we had available at the time. It’s been used to insulate Mars rovers, shield telescopes, and even capture comet dust flying through the void.
What was once a laboratory curiosity became a helpful little bet to the stars.
Buildings That Breathe Less Energy
Aerogel isn’t only for astronauts!
Think about the future of houses wrapped in walls that feel like air yet somehow insulate better than a thick fluffy down comforter.
That’s what aerogel promises for architecture: windows that keep out winter’s chill and walls that don’t leak your carefully cooled air into summer’s inferno.
Buildings are greedy beasts, it’s estimated that they swallow nearly 40% of global energy.
If aerogel can line their bones, that appetite for energy might take a massive downturn.
Energy use could drop dramatically while emissions fall.
A fragile, smoky cube of clouds might help bend the curve of climate change.
And as I’ve noted many times before, we need more than one solution for our climate issue. Our death by a thousand papercuts needs a thousand different bandaids.
The Makers of Frozen Smoke
Thankfully, there is no single hand that holds aerogel at this point in time.
It is born in many different places around the world in quiet studios of chemistry and halls of innovation.
In Massachusetts, Aspen Aerogels has spent over two decades weaving aerogel into Pyrogel and Cryogel, materials that wrap themselves around gas pipelines and submarines using the captured clouds to armor the world.
Then there’s Cabot Corporation, long established player in the chemistry world.
From their labs in Boston, they spin aerogel fibers into tools for industrial heat control and even lithium-ion batteries.
On the quieter side, Aerogel Technologies engineers monolithic, transparent blocks…like glass you can hold, but with the heat-stopping might of a encapsulated snowstorm.
And that’s not the end of the Aerogel giants!
Looking over into Europe, BASF brings global might and eco-vision: lab-brewing aerogel solutions for greener cities and cleaner energy infrastructure.
And don’t count out the nimble dreamers: Active Aerogels (Croatia) and Svenska Aerogel (Sweden) pushing plant-based and lightweight aerogels into architecture and transportation.
Meanwhile, in the vast factories of China, companies like Guangdong Alison are scaling aerogel and layering it into panels and blankets until it becomes an everyday thing, not just a marvel to get us to Mars!
After all these years, the world is finding ways to sculpt these fluffy clouds into substance all around the globe.
Strength and Fragility
There’s something I an obsessed with about aerogel’s dual nature.
It’s nearly weightless, but it can hold thousands of times its own weight.
Drop it wrong, though, and it shatters like spun sugar.
Like a Prince Rupert’s Drop!
It’s strong and weak, fragile and enduring, depending on how you treat it.
And isn’t that just like all of us deep down?
We walk around carrying more than we think, and prone to breaking if the world presses from the wrong angle.
Or if we are PMSing that day.
Why I Love These Clouds Made Solid
When I see aerogel, I don’t only see a scientific marvel.
I see the future trying to take shape in a block that looks like a frozen wisp of breath on a winter’s day.
I think about homes that need less power, explorers walking on Mars in boots lined with this featherweight shield (probably got there because of Elon Musk), even jewelry that seems carved from captured sky!
Okay, maybe jewelry is too out there, but I have an obsession with jewelry if you’re new here.
I suppose that sometimes the things that look least substantial are the ones with the potential to hold up the future.
Reads You Might Enjoy:
The Building That Breathes: How Moss Bricks Are Changing the Future of Architecture
The Ultra-Thin, Bullet-Stopping Material That Hardens Like a Diamond
The Whitest Paint Ever Could Cool Cities and Fight Climate Change
This New Material Pulls Drinking Water Straight Out of Thin Air
The Concrete That Heals Itself: How Synthetic Lichen Could Reshape Our World
The Skin That Repairs Itself: How Robots Are Learning to Heal Without Us
The Fabric That Feels: Touch-Sensitive Clothing Without Electronics
The Vanishing Healer: Synthetic Cartilage That Regenerates Then Disappears
