A pilot plant intended to manufacture silica aerogel products for different applications, including spray insulation, is being planned by the company Aeroskin Tech AG (Zurich, Switzerland; www.aeroskintech.com). Aerogels are dried gels that maintain their volume when dried, and have nanoscale pore structure. The nanoporosity makes aerogels better insulators than conventional insulation materials, because it reduces the heat transfer occurring via molecule-to-molecule collisions. “In the nanostructure of the aerogel, the pore dimensions are at sizes that result in air molecules colliding with the pore walls more often than they do with each another, explains Daniel Sanz-Pont, founder of Aeroskin Tech. “This is called the Knudsen effect,” he says, and, in the context of building insulation, effectively reduces the heat flow from a building’s interior to the outside.
Source: Aeroskin
After extensive materials-science research exploring the mixing and processing of granulated silica aerogels, Sanz-Pont was able to develop a process for making the aerogels in a form that can be applied to buildings by different means, including spray. Because of the effectiveness of the aerogel insulation, it can be used in places that require thin insulation layers. Aeroskin Tech was spun off from Sanz-Pont’s research at ETH Zurich (www.ethz.ch), and is now looking for investment.