Aerogel commercialization pilot project. Final program report

Aerogels are extremely light weight, high surface area, very insulative materials that offer many potential improvements to commercial products. Aerogels have been the subject of extensive research at Department of Energy Laboratories and have been considered one of the technology most ready for commercialization. However, commercialization of the technology had been difficult for the National Laboratories since end users were not interested in the high temperature and high pressure chemical processes involved in manufacturing the raw material. Whereas, Aerojet as a supplier of rocket fuels, specialty chemicals and materials had the manufacturing facilities and experience to commercially produce aerogel-type products. Hence the TRP provided a link between the technology source (National Laboratories), the manufacturing (Aerojet) and the potential end users (other TRP partners). The program successfully produced approximately 500 ft{sup 2} of organic aerogel but failed to make significant quantities of silica aerogel. It is significant that this production represents both the largest volume and biggest pieces of organic aerogel ever produced. Aerogels, available from this program, when tested in several prototype commercial products were expected to improve the products performance, but higher than expected projected production costs for large scale manufacture of aerogels has limited continued commercial interest from these partners. Aerogels do, however, offer potential as a specialty material for some high value technology and defense products