Transparent ultralow density silica aerogels prepared by a two step sol gel process英文文献.pdfVIP

Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids 145 (1992) 44-50 J O U R N A L O F North-Holland NON-CRYSTALLINESOLIDS Transparent ultralow-density silica aerogels prepared by a two-step sol-gel process T.M. Tillotson and L.W. H r u b e s h Chemistry and Material Science Department, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94550, USA Interest in lowering aerogel densities for applications involving high energy charged particle detection via the Cherenkov effect has led to the development of a two-step sol gel method for preparing ultralow-density aerogels. This method has been used in the authors laboratories to produce uncracked, transparent aerogel tiles with densities from 3 to 80 k g / m 3. Comparative characterization of conventional single-step base-catalyzed aerogels to aerogels prepared by this two-step approach is presented. Results indicate that the aerogel microstructure for the two-step approach differs from the bead-like structure proposed for single-step base-catalyzed TMOS aerogels. T EM micrographs of aerogels prepared by the two-step method show an interlinked polymer-chain-like structure with an average chain diameter of 2-3 nm and an average chain length of approximately 15 nm. U V - V I S spectrophotometry shows the transmittance over the visible spectrum (400-800 nm) to be improved for the two-step aerogels by as much as 30%. Other measurements of the ultralow-density aerogels include BET surface area, and compressive modulus. 1. Introduction