Aerogels: Proceedings of the First International Symposium, Würzburg, Fed. Rep. of Germany September 23–25, 1985 (Springer Proceedings in Physics, 6)

This book contains the papers presented at the "First International Sympo­ st sium on Aerogels (1 ISA)", held in September 1985 at. the University of Wiirzburg, Fed. Rep. of Germany. It was the first meet.ing of this kind, wit.h participants from several European count.ries, the United States of America, Canada, South America, and Africa. The meeting was interdisciplinary, with most of the participants being physicists, chemists or material scientists ei­ ther from universities or from industrial research institutes. Let me try to shed some light upon the class of substances the symposium was about: Aerogels are extremely porous high-tech materials, consisting ei­ ther of silica, alumina, zirconia, stannic or tungsten oxide or mixtures of these oxides. Due to their high porosity (up t.o 99%!) and t.heir large inner surface, aerogels serve as especially active catalysts or as catalytic subst.rates, as adsorbents, fillers, reinforcement agents, pigments and gellifying agents. Silica aerogels as translucent or transparent superinsulating fillers in window systems could help to considerably reduce thermal losses in windows and to improve the energy balance in passive solar systems. Aerogels also have fas­ cinating acoustic properties - the sound velocity can be as low as 100 m/s! The production of aerogels starts with the controlled conversion of a sol into a gel: The growth of clusters or polymer chains from a chemical solution, the cross-linking of these primary entities and the formation of a coherent network - still embedded in a liquid. Front Matter....Pages I-VIII Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Aerogels — a Fascinating Class of High-Performance Porous Solids....Pages 2-19 Front Matter....Pages 21-21 Aerogels of Inorganic Oxides....Pages 22-30 Advances in Production of Transparent Silica Aerogels for Window Glazings....Pages 31-37 Large-Scale Production of Airglass....Pages 38-41 Aerogels: Precursors or End Materials?....Pages 42-48 The Sol-Gel Process for Non-Metallic Inorganic Materials....Pages 49-56 Synthesis and Structure of Borate Based Aerogels....Pages 57-67 Preparation, Densification and Characterization of Autoclave Dried SiO 2 Gels....Pages 68-75 Microporous Silica Fibres....Pages 76-81 Front Matter....Pages 83-83 Translucent Insulation for Passive Solar Energy Utilization in Buildings....Pages 84-93 Thermal Transport in Porous Superinsulations....Pages 94-103 Thermal Conductivity of SiO 2 -Aerogel Tiles....Pages 104-109 Radiative Heat Transfer in Silica Aerogel....Pages 110-115 Thermal Conductivity of Granular SiO 2 Aerogel....Pages 116-120 Thermal Properties of Silica Aerogel....Pages 121-126 Solar Transmission of Aerogel Pellets....Pages 127-132 Aerogel as a Transparent Thermal Insulation Material for Buildings....Pages 133-139 Front Matter....Pages 141-141 Microstructural Properties of Transparent Silica Aerogels....Pages 142-147 Pore Size Distribution of Silica Systems....Pages 148-153 Microstructure of Silica Based Aerogel Using High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy....Pages 154-159 Front Matter....Pages 141-141 Structural Analysis of Granular Silica Aerogels....Pages 160-166 Mechanical and Acoustic Properties of Silica Aerogel....Pages 167-173 Front Matter....Pages 175-175 Aerogel in High Energy Physics....Pages 176-187 Silica Aerogel and Space Astrophysics....Pages 188-192 On Some Recent Applications of Aerogels....Pages 193-199 Back Matter....Pages 201-208