Aerogel: Scientists develop incredibly light, powerful insulation material

Scientists have developed a nearly entirely weightless material that can protect against some of the most extreme temperatures anything could ever face.

The aerogel is made up almost entirely of air and weighs only slightly more than it, allowing it to be used in a whole host of environments.

But despite that lightness it can withstand intense temperatures. It was able to perform well when heated to 900 Celsius and then straight away cooled right down to 198 Celsius, according to the authors of a new paper in Science detailing the discovery.

Such materials could be of particular use in environments such as space. Travelling on rockets and other spacecraft can bring such intense heat and cold temperatures that it can easily destroy them.

This new material could be ideal for use in areas like the heat shields on space vehicles, the authors say.

Aerogels are a material made up of air that is stuck within a network made of a solid medium, such as ceramic, metal or carbon.

Ceramic aerogels can be incredibly lightweight, but still able to endure demanding environments. However, they are usually very brittle and easily degrade, making them hard to use as insulation and limiting their adoption.

However, the new ceramic aerogel has been created using atomically thin sheets of a substance known as hexagonal boron nitride. That was carefully engineered into a new material that does not expand outwards when it is compressed or heated up, unlike other similar materials.

It then succeeded in a whole host of tests, including experiments that heated and cooled it rapidly. The aerogel hardly changed at all, the authors right, and did not lose any strength.