Sol-gel aerogel

Production of net-shape siUca (qv) components serves as an example of sol—gel processing methods. A siUca gel may be formed by network growth from an array of discrete coUoidal particles (method 1) or by formation of an intercoimected three-dimensional network by the simultaneous hydrolysis and polycondensation of a chemical precursor (methods 2 and 3). When the pore Hquid is removed as a gas phase from the intercoimected soHd gel network under supercritical conditions (critical-point drying, method 2), the soHd network does not coUapse and a low density aerogel is produced. Aerogels can have pore volumes as large as 98% and densities as low as 80 kg/m (12,19). 

Tamon H, Ishizaka H, Mikami M, Okazaki M. Porous structure of organic and carbone aerogels synthesized by sol-gel polycondensation of resorcinol with formaldehyde. Carbon 1997 35 791-6... 

Maury, S., Buisson, P., Perrard, A. and Pierre, A.C. (2004) Influence of the sol-gel chemistry on the activity of a lipase encapsulated in a silica aerogel. Journal of Molecular Catalysis B-Enzymatic, 29, 133-148. 

The first phase in the process is the formation of the sol . A sol is a colloidal suspension of solid particles in a liquid. Colloids are solid particles with diameters of 1-100 nm. After a certain period, the colloidal particles and condensed silica species link to form a gel - an interconnected, rigid network with pores of submicrometer dimensions and polymeric chains whose average length is greater than one micrometer. After the sol-gel transition, the solvent phase is removed from the interconnected pore network. If removed by conventional drying such as evaporation, so-called xerogels are obtained, if removed via supercritical evacuation, the product is an aerogel . 

E. F. Murphy, L. Schmid, T. Burgi, M. Maciejewski, A. Baiker, D. Gunther and M. Schneider, Nondestructive Sol-Gel Immobilization of Metal (salen) Catalysts in Silica Aerogels and Xerogels, Chem. Mater., 2001, 13, 1296. 

Sol—gel, alumina derived from, 23 76—78 Sol-gel bioactive glasses, 23 82-83 Sol-gel chemistry aerogels, 1 749-753 ceramics processing, 5 642 Sol-gel coatings, 5 665... 

Figure 16. The pore-size distribution for sol—gel-derived birnessite Na(5Mn02 20 as processed into three pore-solid nanoarchitectures xerogel, ambigel, and aerogel. Distributions are derived from N2 physisorption measurements and calculated on the basis of a cylindrical pore model. (Reprinted with permission from ref 175. Copyright 2001 American Chemical Society.)...

Stabilization of activated oxidoreductases on time scales of months to years has historically been challenging, and the lack of success in this regard has limited the industrial implementation of redox enzymes to applications that do not require long lifetimes. However, as mentioned in the Introduction, some possibility of improved stability has arisen from immobilization of enzymes in hydrophilic cages formed by silica sol—gels and aerogels, primarily for sensor applications.The tradeoff of this approach is expected to be a lowering of current density because... 

---