Making silica aerogel at home

[funguyround]

do you hav any idea how dangerous the tetramethyl orthosilicate is??? for one, its flashpoint is 60 degrees.

[4eversax]

0:10 Don't forget the note! Buy meth!

[TheSurrealityTest]

@4eversax lmao

[invertedlow]

Thanks for sharing. You rock.

[Benisuber1]

Do you think that TEOS would make higher quality aerogel? It's also MUCH cheaper than TMOS.

[CognitiveNetwork]

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo... it's supposed to be an Industrial secret you mother fucker!!!

[passcal87]

mlk

[kiyotewolf]

how long does aerogel last? how long does it take to decompose?

[larsruberti]

expectation will be me making earogel.

Reality is that it will blow up in my face

[lucariox2o]

soooooo...... crystal meth

[Gatuno894]

We will not manufacture the airgel, but I need all infomation to share everyone that will watch for presentation.

thank you very much

I'm in Brazil, Sao Paulo, a city of Valinhos

[Gatuno894]

bkraz333 Man I admire your work, I'm looking for step by step process of silica airgel.

I want to present an essay at the University where the airgel is the theme, and I would like to have the step by step to produce it.

I loved your videos and also the inventions. They helped me a lot how to present my essay at the university.



[jabo109k]

Great video, made me understand the process! Tks...subscribed

[Surfurplex]

You look like Dewey from Malcolm in the middle :D

[archaedemos]

try pre cooling the chamber to prevent co2 boiling ... perhaps

[fakemadereal]

Hmmm.... My mother has access to the local community college lab. I might have to, "pay them a visits" for a little project.

[TheMrBlinx]

In light of how hard the chemical(s) are to get, they are probably quite expensive, too. Since uses for Aerogel are growing exponentially, so will the need for the chemicals. Being able to make such exotic chemicals could be quite lucrative.

[1776dragon]

aerogel is a great insulater from heat and cold, if I had a .25 inch around my house I wound not pay more than $5 a mounth to heat or cool it, and a forest fire wouldent worry me.

[Lantis02]

But... what does aerogel do?

[TickyTack23]

A better method of removing water from the gel block before drying would be adding Calcium Oxide in the methanol to dry it of water and have the gel block sit on a stand away from the Calcium oxide. Calcium oxide is insoluble in methanol and is used as a drying agent for alcohols.

[gricka31]

you sir are simply a GOD!

[gillesb95]

wow zero dislikes!

[mightyfinejonboy]

is this stuff used in nuclear devices?

[omichron420]

I'm in awe. If I could do that I'd be dropping pieces in front of hot girls at bars all the time. "oops, just dropped a piece of my homemade aerogel." wink wink nudge nudge.

[MrFirminVernege]

Can you ship this? cause i really want to try this. Or can you ship me a piece of aero gel for a presentation?

[xG33Kx]

@MrFirminVernege Professionally made samples are available at some places, I know I saw it once at thinkgeek but it's pretty expensive.

[1776dragon]

@xG33Kx unitednuclar web site has granular cheap, or the size he shows for $35

[1899lpv]

I just dropped by and I am curious about what are the proprieties of aerogel ? I am not good at chemistry because everything ends up with a big bang.

[spokenwithaction]

Anyone know where to buy Tetramethoxysilane? Please no preaching about safety or "cant's". I have a lab it can be sent to. Also, this is not a DIY at home video!

[uberbleachfan]

This video shoud be called Making silica aerogel AT THE FUCKING CHEMISTRY LAB

[lexichronicle2]

"aerogel bricks"

Interesting!

I was watching this again and noticed the methanol part. A common thing in chemistry labs is removing moisture from solvents. Potassium carbonate, magnesium / calcium sulphate can be used for alcohols. You could either remove the methanol, dry it and put it back, or perhaps add the drying agent to the dish with the gel and methanol.

Google; 'delloyd drying agent', 'erowid drying solvents' and 'erowid selection guide', top links = lots of info + options

[lexichronicle2]

"Something I'd be itching to try with DIY aerogel would be a tiny desktop furnace. It could get white hot inside and barely warm up outside."

Someone has already done something similar too. If you google for 'thermos furnace' and similar, I think it's in popular science, and it's a tiny decomposition furnace build in a coffee thermos, using the vacuum walls as insulation. Nice. :D

[bkraz333]

@lexichronicle2 Good idea! I'll start making some small aerogel bricks.

[lexichronicle2]

It's funny, I was literally just on the wiki article and this appeared in the uploads. My house in the UK is all drafty and cold now, and I've wondered if in the future we'll be using panels of this as insulation. But was quite surprised that it's insulation value is not that much better than urethanes, so I guess until it's as cheap as that, it'll always be more economic to just use slightly thicker urethane panel. Aerogel might be better in terms of fires and fumes.

[budforever442200]

Could you use the supercritical chamber for extracting caffeine? Place coffee beans inside the chamber, fill with ethanol, fill co2 and turn supercritical, then bleed extracted caffeine off the bottom valve?

[bkraz333]

@budforever442200 Yes, I am going to try this pretty soon. I already tried doing it with a paintball gun cylinder, and had no success. This time, I have a better CO2 setup, and will more closely follow the methods described in decaffeination process patents.

[lazyorc]

nice meth lab you got there ;)

[FLYGUYNO1]

once you have made it,.. what can u use it for??

[LegendofJonnie]

Maybe an odd question, but what is machining aerogel like?

[bkraz333]

@LegendofJonnie It's very brittle like chalk or charcoal. I imagine the only way to reduce its size would be by grinding. I'll give it a shot on my next batch of larger silica gel pieces.

[jaws99099]

I like your shop! ~Subscribed~ I also live in SJ :-)

[Rasayana85]

Oh how I would like to have this guy as a neighbor.

[alexjit]

not bad mr walter white

[kylaxcry]

Home? What kinda freak does that in home lol

[soksume]

@kylaxcry i would

[tycoinreno]

I've never made this, and I have no chemistry background, but I have an idea:

Put your last methanol change in a chest freezer (set to -40 degrees) to maybe reduce the thermal shock when you add liquid CO2?

[mimac1234]

why don't you try using silicagel for the drying of methanol? And maybe try filling the CO2 from the bottom?

[yellowmetalcyborg]

Very nice! You can make small amounts of tetramethyl orthosilicate by reacting silicon tetrachloride with methanol. I don't know if it's cheaper, but you can get 1 liter of SiCl4 off of Alfa Aesar for about 80 bucks, that is, if they sell to individuals. Might be worth a try...

[mrjimmyos]

1.15 - that's much catchier!

[gork42]

Good job, man; this is really a cool accomplishment. I have wanted to make aerogel but never got around to it.

I have wondered how aerogel holds up when under compression in a confined space. I know it breaks down in the presence of moisture, but does it hold up structurally if it is completely encapsulated in something like heat shrink plastic? You could stuff a small piece in some heatshrink, heat seal the ends and see what happens!

[electrodacus]

Do you have any applications for aerogel ? I only know it can be used as thermal insulation but there are probably better solution for this.

[ScalesandGills]

2:05

"The Pyro is a SPY!"

[diogeneslaertius666]

@ScalesandGills HAHAHA (genuine belly laughter - at least until my hat fell off)

[harrytorta]

@ScalesandGills TF2 much?

[1776dragon]

@ScalesandGills Why do you say he is a spy?

[jpfo1776]

Your enterprise is impressive! Always enjoy your presentations. To be facetious - dude - you have way too much time on your hands :). Keep up the good work tho.

[butteredskatoast]

I wish I could thumbs up more than once. Cool video!

[cyrex686]

I had my doubts when you first talked about doing this, but wow it's amazing what an individual can pull off. I've only seen areogel once, at an art exhibit, it was a nice big chunk of it too. It really does look exactly like smoke.

[hitachi088]

be careful when you answer the door, so you dont get busted as a "meth-lab".

[ytmachx]

Another job well done.

[visnevskiscom]

Awesome! How the price compares to buying Aerogel? Of course it would eleminate the interesting part, I'm just curious :)

[LukeeeeBennettPlus]

@visnevskiscom 3mg/cm3 aerogel costs $2100/g ish.

[soksume]

@LukeeeeBennettPlus you can buy .095g/cm3 aerogel for $39.99 at ThinkGeek .  com

[MrCepstrum]

Interesting and congratulation it works out. I did some investigations after watching your experiment. TMOS is highly poisonous and creates explosive gases (flash point at 26°C). Everyone should definitely read the material safety data sheet and take the necessary precautions! No wonder they don't sell it to individuals (even here in germany). Overall it's very interesting but i personaly don't have the lab and machines to do this kind of experiments. It's very cool you share this with us.

[refa42]

I'm glad that you checked out the aerogel (d) org tip, looks like you are having great fun making aerogel. Great results too. Congratulations!

[KiloSierraAlpha]

Awesome as always! BTW, what will you do with the aerogel? Just play with it?

Also, how strong/brittle is the aerogel? Also, have you tried putting flame to it to check its awesome insulation properties?

[jossi166]

Awesome video. It is just amazing to see what you are able to accomplish in your workshop!!

[peorthwb]

Sweet!