This paper reports a method to integrate silica aerogels monolithically in microfluidic chips. Silica Aerogel is a highly porous bulk material. The gel was synthesized from tetraethyl orthosilicate by a sol-gel process. Polyethylene glycol and an extended aging period were used to strengthen the matrix minimizing gel shrinkage. This technique allows alcogel structures with high strength and sti...

We have used molecular dynamics simulations based on a three-body potential with charge transfer to generate nanoporous silica aerogels. Care was taken to reproduce the sol-gel condensation reaction that forms the gel backbone as realistically as possible and to thereby produce credible gel structures. The self-similarity of aerogel structures was investigated by evaluating their fractal dimens...

Introduction: Silica aerogel is an ultra-lowdensity glass foam used in collector tiles for the capture of particles in low Earth orbit [1] and, recently, for the capture of cometary particles by NASA’s Stardust mission [2]. Reliable and reproducible methods for cutting these and future collector tiles from sample return missions are necessary to enable detailed study of the captured material. T...

Excessive usage of sand in construction industries has generated many environmental issues. Silica aerogel, is able to minimise issues while providing thermal resistance for building materials. aerogel properties such as lightweight, nano-porous and very low conductivity compared the mortar matrix. This paper studied compression flexural strengths with silica a replacement. Cement ratio 1:3 was...

Introduction: One of the most remarkable findings from of the study of comet samples returned by the Stardust mission is the apparent scarcity of pre-solar grains. Unlike common expectations, the abundance of pre-solar grains in comet Wild 2 appears to be less than in primitive meteorites, micrometeorites and IDPs. The best measurements of the abundances of isotopically anomalous pre-solar grai...