Aerogels: Synthesis, Characterization and Application

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

The Special Issue, “Aerogels – Synthesis, Characterization and Application”, will focus on the specific development of aerogels and aerogel based composites for advanced applications. Due to the outstanding combination of properties an awesome variety of applications using aerogels and aerogel based composites is possible. Applications requiring materials for thermal super insulation, light weight construction, electrochemical topics, acoustic damping, adsorption agents, medical issues, as well as cosmetics and personal care products to mention some are under development. All of them are dealing with special combinations of properties which are meanly defined by the open porous nanostructured network and the great variety of chemical origin of the aerogels. The requirements can be matched by a careful setting up, starting with lab-scale experiments followed by a smooth scaling-up and leading to industrial scale production in the near future. The idea of the special issue is to collect the knowledge of the correlation between the necessities of taking care on chemical precursors and reaction conditions during synthesis and suitable drying methods as well as further functionalization to meet the required combination of properties. In this context we would like to invite you to contribute to this special issue. Both original papers and reviews dealing with synthesis, characterization and prospective applications as well as numerical simulations on the design and functionality of aerogels and aerogel based composites are welcome.

Dr. Barbara Milow
Guest Editor

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