Surfactant doped silica aerogels dried at supercritical pressure

By combining the molecular silica precursor methyltrimethoxysilane (MTMS) with methanol, water and Tween-80 solution, we get surfactant-doped silica alcogels. The wet alcogels can be exchanged with methanol and then supercritically extracted with nitrogen to produce surfactant-doped silica aerogels (SDSAs). SDSAs represent a new class of aerogels that are composed of aggregated submicron porous particles that have tunable interparticle nanoporosity. As we increased the percentage of surfactant, the physical properties of silica aerogels changes. In this study we characterized the SDSAs by SEM for morphological study, FTIR for the material composition, contact angle for hydrophobicity determination and thermal conductivity measurements are carried out for thermal insulation application.