Synthesis of hydrophobic aerogels for transparent window insulation applications

The present paper deals with the synthesis of hydrophobic aerogels using methyltrimethoxysilane (MTMS) as a hydrophobic agent for transparent window insulation applications. The molar ratio of methanol (solvent), water, and ammonia (catalyst) to the tetramethoxysilane (precursor) MeOH/H2O/NH4OH/TMOS was fixed at 12/4&/3·6×10-3/1 throughout the experiments and the MTMS/TMOS molar ratio M was varied from 0 to 1·55. After gelation, the alcogels were dried supercritically using the high temperature alcohol method. It has been found that lower (<0·26) M values resulted in highly transparent (optical transmission >90% for a 10 mm thick sample at 800 mm wavelength) and negligible volume shrinkage (<2%) but less hydrophobic aerogels whereas higher (>1·03) M values resulted in semitransparent (<20% optical transmission of 800 nm for a 1 cm thick sample) aerogels with >10% volume shrinkage but excellent hydrophobicity. A good compromise of acceptable optical transmittance (∼85% optical transmission at 800 nm for a 1 cm thick sample), hydrophobicity with 42 kg m-3 bulk density, and negligible volume shrinkage were obtained at M≈0·70. Hydrophobicity of the aerogels was tested by measuring the contact angle between a water droplet and the aerogel surface. The aerogels were characterised by infrared spectroscopy, bulk density, optical transmittance, and thermal conductivity measurements.