Abstract
Aerogels are dry gels with a very high specific pore volume. Aerogels with increased hydrophobicity have significant potential to expand their use as lightweight materials. Considering its special nanostructure and exceptional properties, this paper focuses on the synthesis and hydrophobic evaluation of a silica aerogel. The structural properties were investigated by measuring density, SEM micrographs, and BET analyses. Also, the hydrophobic evaluation was carried out by measuring 3M water repellency and water/alcohol contact angle. The BET analysis showed successful synthesis of the nanoporous silica aerogel with a pore size of 24 nm and porosity of 89%. The synthesized aerogel showed 3M water repellency of 3 and water contact angle of 129.6°. Also, it is worth-mentioning that as the alcohol content of the drops in 3M water repellency test is increased, the drop contact angle is decreased due to its lower surface tension. Thus, the contact angle reaches the zero at 3M water repellency test number of 4 (water/alcohol 60/40).
Highlights
The word aerogel was firstly presented by Kistler in 1932 to title gels in which the liquid was replaced with a gas, without collapsing the gel solid network [1]
Standeker et al [6] studied the effects of MTMS and TMES on hydrophobicity and achieved contact angles of 42–173 ̊ for MTMS/TMOS molar ratios of 0.5–5 and contact angles of 100–180 ̊ for TMES/TMOS molar ratios of 0.5–5
This paper focuses on one of the most studied aerogel materials, silica aerogels and investigates its synthesis and hydrophobic properties containing surface energy in a new way
Summary
The word aerogel was firstly presented by Kistler in 1932 to title gels in which the liquid was replaced with a gas, without collapsing the gel solid network [1]. The majority of the work reported in the literature has focused on the use of organosilanes specially methytrimethoxysilane (MTMS) or trimethylethoxysilane (TMES) as a co-precursor to make hydrophobic gels They achieved a water contact angle up to 180 ̊. Jeong et al [8] provide a direct comparison of TEOS-based, ambient-dried aerogel powders with and without silylation and show an increase in contact angle from near zero to 158 when silylation was used Different from these works, no research has been done on the surface energy investigation of the aerogel material via 3M water repellency test. The location of a droplet on the surface of the hydrophobic treated samples allows evaluating the water contact angle.
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