Accomplishments

LIGHTWEIGHT AND OUTSTANDING MECHANICAL STRENGTH OF AGAVE FIBER REINFORCED SILICA AEROGEL BLANKET
The present invention is related to successfully prepared monolithic, lightweight and mechanically robust agave fiber reinforced silica aerogel blankets. As synthesized blanket are developed with the help of economical industrial grade sodium silicate solution, as a source of silica and agave fiber. The monolithic aerogel blankets are developed in situ process by reinforcing biodegradable and lightweight agave fiber in silica hydrosol followed by most effective ambient pressure drying technique which plays vital role to make commercialize the production of silica aerogel blanket. The aqueous colloidal silica hydrogel obtained from less expensive precursor industrial grade sodium silicate solution precursor by acid-base sol-gel polymerization. Then the hydrogel were uniformly spread on non-woven agave fiber. After gelation, aging of silica hydro-gel blanket were subsequently followed by one step solvent exchange and surface modification(EtOH/Hexane/TMCS), ambient pressure drying(oven/sunlight) step by step .