Saturday, October 29, 2011

Supercritical drying chamber for aerogel production



I built a pressure chamber from 2" pipe fittings and 1/8" brass valves to contain supercritical CO2 for drying applications. One project is to try aerogel production which generally requires that solvent be removed via supercritical drying. Normal evaporation would deform the aerogel structure as the surface tension of the solvent pulls the gel's structure tighter together and makes it dense. Since supercritical fluids have gaseous properties, they can diffuse out through the gel without affecting the structure the way that a liquid would.

8 comments:

  1. Nice video. I'll be quite interested to see the aerogel manufacture, too. I'm pretty fascinated with aerogels, though I don't know exactly what I'd do with some if I had it :-).

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  2. You're trying to make silica aerogel, right?

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  3. why not fill from the bottom?

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  4. I think an interesting aerogel project you could try is making x-aerogel (not a xerogel) according to aerogel.org they are very strong compared to a normal aerogel but have a much lower insulation value.

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  5. Sir can you help me to build supercritical dryer for my project.please tell me from start what parts are required how to buy this parts and its assembly.I will great thankfull to you.I am from India.

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  6. Sir can you help me to build supercritical dryer for my project.please tell me from start what parts are required how to buy this parts and its assembly.I will great thankfull to you.I am from India.

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    Replies
    1. Hello, were you able to find the part used? If so, could you tell me? I also want to build this manuclave.

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  7. Hi Ben!
    Im Hudson from Brazil and im making one dryer too and i need to ask you somethings.
    Do you have some email or facebook?
    Im looking forward to talk with you!
    Thank you!
    Hudson

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