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Here’s what we are hearing:

Nanocerox expands Manufacturing and Research & Development operations by 20% to meet continued market demands

The company recently announced an expansion of the manufacturing and R&D facilities located in Ann Arbor, Mich. The newly added operations will allow Nanocerox to optimize its production capabilities into one location and expand its overall R&D capabilities, and provide ceramic nanopowders and optical ceramics to the marketplace.

Shipments of Solarban 70XL glass by PPG surpass 94 million square feet

The company announced that shipments of Solarban 70XL glass, a triple-silver-coated, solar control, low-emissivity (low-e) glass, have surpassed 94 million square feet. The glass, introduced in 2005 has a clear-glass appearance and feature a solar heat gain coefficient (of 0.27 and visible light transmittance of 64 percent. Solarban 70XL glass has been installed on more than 300 commercial buildings and has saved an average of more than $25 million per building.

DeCarlo joins Blasch Precision Ceramics as product development engineer

As Blasch Precision Ceramics’ new development engineer, Keith DeCarlo will complete material and process development projects and programs, providing the company with new ceramic application solutions for its customer base. DeCarlo will be responsible for the technical aspects in a number of current specific business development projects and comes to Blasch with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in ceramic engineering and a PhD degree in ceramic science all from the Inamori School of Engineering, Alfred University.

Netzsch, in collaboration with PNNL’s Joint Analytical System, has forged a breakthrough improvement in reaction gas analysis

Netzsch and JAS have coupled the simultaneous thermobalance-DSC to a gas chromatograph to yield additional findings to help in identifying the components released. The new system differs from similar instruments with its even-driven start of the measurement. This enables temperature-correlated detection of the substances released, which in turn allows for direct correlation with mass loss steps. PNNL will be using the new system to analyze the production of simulated radioactive waste glass from batch chemistry through the melt state while monitoring the evolved gasses. The data will then be used to populate models to predict melt performance through changes in composition.

Canadian venture capital fund invests $2.5M in American Aerogel

Cycle Capital Management announced a $2.5 million investment in a new company, American Aerogel Corporation, that develops and commercializes Aerocore, a more efficient thermal insulation. “At Cycle Capital, we’re committed to finding outstanding entrepreneurs in the cleantech sector and identifying the most promising innovations that have the potential to transform their market,” said Andree-Lise Methot, founder and senior partner of Cycle Capital.

Lucifer Furnaces ships box furnace to SunCoast Automation 2000 Inc.

The company recently sent SunCoast Automation 2000, which designs and builds automated systems for various industries, one of its Series 7000 line of box furnaces. The HL7 model has heating elements located on both side walls and reaches 2300°F. The heavy gauge, low watt density coiled elements are housed in easy-to-replace holders. The 6″H x 6″W x 12″L chamber is insulated with 2.5″ low-iron insulating brick as well as 2.5″ of mineral wool block for energy efficient operation and low outside shell temperature. A 1″ thick hearth plates provides a solid, strong work surface for parts. The double pivot horizontal swing door keeps the hot surface away from the operator at all times and is designed with a safety microswitch to shut power to heating elements when the door is opened. The heavy duty hinge and cam latch insure a positive door seal. An automated Honeywell digital time proportioning temperature controller for precision heat treating is mounted on the side wall of the unit.

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Aerogel plaster is sprayed onto walls of historic buildings. (Credit: Empa)

Renovating any historic structure is a project that comes with numerous challenges, one of which is how to insulate the interior without altering the appearance of the exterior. One group says that aerogel may be the key to solving this dilemma.

Researchers at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology claims to have developed a high performance plaster using an aerogel. The material is said to insulate three times better than conventional insulating render, containing perlite or expanded polystyrene.

According to an Empa press release, the mineral basis of the material likens it to original historical building material, both visually and in application. It can be sprayed both on internal and external surfaces. The aerogel plaster is water repellent and permeable to water vapor. It can be used with conventional plastering machines.

“The porous structure of the aerogel makes the plaster permeable to water molecules, but for macroscopic water droplets the nano-pores are much too fine,” developer Thomas Stahl says.

The cost is expected to be between $50 and $100 per square meter above conventional materials, depending on how thickly it is sprayed on. The material will undergo field trials over the next year, and should be commercially available by 2013.

No information was provided about the composition of the aerogel or how the plaster is prepared without disturbing the aerogel’s brittle structure.

UPDATE: Thomas Stahl returned our requests for additional information about the material. He says the key component is silica aerogel. When asked how he combats the brittleness factor and handling problems normally associated with aerogels, Stahl claims this is not a problem because silica aerogel while in the plaster is extremely stable at hydrostatic pressure.

Stahl also notes that no special equipment is required to use the special plaster and that all of their tests were conducted using “common plaster machines.”

Additionally, here is a photo of silica aerogel in its “raw” state.

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This is a great introductory 54-minute video of a lecture presented earlier this year by Alex Gash and Dean Reese as part of Lawrence Livermore National Lab’s excellent Science on Saturday program. The SOS series is aimed at bringing “cutting-edge” science topics to middle and high school students. Each of the talks are presented by a leading LLNL science researchers supported by a master high school science teacher.

Gash may be familiar to some people because he also starred in a shorter video on aerogel for the KQED/Discovery Channel’s Quest Lab series. Gash is a materials chemist in the advanced Materials Synthesis Group at LLNL where he focuses on low-density porous materials for possible optical and energy storage applications.

Reese is a high school physics and biology teacher at Tracy High School.

If you want to skip the intros, you can directly go to around the 5:00 mark. Gash does a nice job of briefly explaining career opportunities in chemistry and then jumps right in to explaining sol-gels, and actually demonstrating some of the initial steps of making aerogel. Gash and Reese also walk the audience through the concepts of density, mass and volume; heat transfer; optical properties; and emerging commercial and space-based aerogel products. They even get into the use of aerogel in art.

(There are several SOS lecture videos available online, and LLNL/SOS provides DVDs and slides of lectures to teachers, in some cases free of charge.)

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PopSci recently reported that a team of researchers have created a new cellulose aerogel. The researched was published in Nature Nanotechnology.

The team, composed of scientists from the Department of Fibre and Polymer Technology, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, soaked cellulose in a metal compound solution and freeze-dried it, removing all the moisture and leaving behind an aerogel in the form of solid fibers. The resultant substance was flexible, unlike typical aerogels, and could also be formed into a flat piece of magnetic nanopaper that was capable of supporting extremely heavy weight.

Researchers who developed this cellulose aerogel believe that it could find its use in fuel cells and in the study of materials science.

By now, aerogels are sort of old news in the materials science community. Although current forms have many uses, this group of scientists decided that overcoming their characteristic stiffness could open up a whole new range of uses.

When looking for a material to use to circumvent the stiffness, the authors decided to try a type of cellulose. Researchers first soaked it in a solution of two metal compounds, iron sulfate and cobalt chloride. While the cellulose soaked, tiny nanoparticles of the metals would stick to the cellulose and remain even after drying, so it could be used as a magnet if desired. Then they freeze-dried the cellulose, leaving nothing but a web of pure, solid fibers. The gel is highly porous and mostly air at this point, and yet can still sustain much weight.

Once the cellulose was freeze dried into an aerogel, the researchers found it was capable of two different applications. One involved crushing most of the air out of it, resulting in a small, strong, flat piece of magnetic “nanopaper” that could support 400,000 pounds per square inch.

But, as a regular aerogel, its properties were still highly unusual: It was flexible and could bend in half and twist easily. Normally aerogels are brittle and fracture under too much force, but the cellulose version could stand twice as much strain as a regular aerogel.

The scientists found that they could also use the flexible aerogel as a tiny sponge. Because its volume was almost 99 percent air, it could absorb water and then be wrung out, while still retaining its shape and magnetic properties. A 60 milligram patch of aerogel could hold about a gram of water.

The very fine structure of cellulose aerogel will allow it to be used in tiny pieces while retaining their characteristics-very stiff and magnetic, or magnetic, flexible, and absorbent-depending on the properties needed.

The authors speculate that their aerogel could find wide use in materials science, as its components, especially the cellulose, come pretty cheap. In the future, they predict it will play the role of a tiny actuator, or appear in microfluidic devices used in fuel cells and for studying the physics of cells.

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At the end of each week, I end up with a list of a bunch of stories I started to write about, or started to investigate or didn’t even get that far even though the topic looked intriguing, but, I had a meeting to go to . . .

Anyway, it’s Friday, and rather than have these stories evaporate into the ether, I’ve decided to close out each week by providing some raw links to some of these orphan tales. Check ‘em out:

• It’s the opportunity, stupid!

• New X Prize: Solve the Wendy Schmidt oil cleanup X CHALLENGE

• LapLogic releases new line of aerogel LapDesks for notebook users

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