About Aerogels:
- Aerogels are composed mostly of air and can be used to remove contaminants.
- They, also known as ‘solid air’ or ‘frozen smoke', are excellent adsorbents (a solid substance used to remove contaminants) and are incredibly lightweight solids composed mostly of air.
- In addition, they offer advantages like adjustable surface chemistry, low density, and a highly porous structure.
A newly developed aerogel adsorbent
- The research team developed a silica aerogel modified with graphene.
- They employed a method called 'supercritical fluid deposition' to prepare these modified aerogels and studied their effectiveness.
- The Graphene-doped modified silica aerogels (GO-SA) were found to exhibit efficiency in purifying water, attracting and removing contaminants due to graphene's unique molecular structure.
- Under real-life conditions mimicked in their experiments, the material removed over 85% of pollutants in controlled settings and more than 76% in continuous flow conditions.
