This indispensable handbook provides comprehensive coverage of the current state-of-the-art in inorganic, organic, and composite aerogels - from synthesis and characterization to cutting-edge applications and their potential market impact. Built upon Springer's successful Aerogels Handbook published in 2011, this handbook features extensive revisions and timely updates, reflecting the changes in this fast-growing field.

Aerogels are the lightest solids known to man. Up to 1000 times lighter than glass and with a density only four times that of air, they possess extraordinarily high thermal, electrical, and acoustic insulation properties, and boast numerous entries in Guinness World Records. Originally based on silica, R&D efforts have extended this class of materials to incorporate non-silicate inorganic oxides, natural and synthetic organic polymers, carbon, metal, and ceramic materials. Composite systems involving polymer-crosslinked aerogels and interpenetrating hybrid networks have been developed and exhibit remarkable mechanical strength and flexibility. Even more exotic aerogels based on clays, chalcogenides, phosphides, quantum dots, and biopolymers such as chitosan are opening new applications for the construction, transportation, energy, defense and healthcare industries. Applications in electronics, chemistry, mechanics, engineering, energy production and storage, sensors, medicine, nanotechnology, military and aerospace, oil and gas recovery, thermal insulation, and household uses are being developed.

Readers of this fully updated and expanded edition will find an exhaustive source for all aerogel materials known today, their fabrication, upscaling aspects, physical and chemical properties, and the most recent advances towards applications and commercial use. This key reference is essential reading for a combined audience of graduate students, academic researchers, and industry professionals.

Michel A. Aegerter is the retired Director of the Department of Coating Technology at the Leibniz-Institut für Neue Materialien (INM) in Saarbrücken with decades of research dedicated exclusively to the sol-gel process, the materials derived from it and their application. Since 2007, he is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sol-Gel Science and Technology (JSST).

Nicholas Leventis received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in organic chemistry in 1985. After retiring as a Professor of Chemistry from the Missouri University of Science and Technology, he recently joined Aspen Aerogels. His aerogel work has focused on polymer-crosslinked aerogels, organic aerogels from most main classes of organic polymers, interpenetrating organic-inorganic aerogels, as well as metallic, ceramic and carbon aerogels.

Matthias M. Koebel received his PhD from Brown University in 2004. After a postdoctoral stay at UC Berkeley with G.A. Somorjai focusing on nanocatalysis, he joined EMPA back in his home country - Switzerland - in 2006 where he began building a research group in soft chemistry and aerogels. His core activities are linked to process-scale up and lab-to-market transfer of nanomaterials science. In 2021 he founded siloxane AG.

Stephen A. Steiner III is the President, CEO, and founder of Aerogel Technologies, LLC, a leading aerogel manufacturer. Steiner holds a PhD in Materials Chemistry and Engineering from MIT's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, an SM in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT, and a BS in Chemistry Course from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is an accomplished nanomaterials researcher, with expertise in aerogels, nanocarbons, and aerospace materials.

PART A: Unit Operations: Processing Steps used in Aerogel Science.- Sol-Gel.- Solvent Exchange and Functionalization.- Supercritical drying of aerogels: theory and practice.- Freeze drying.- Postprocessing.- PART B: Characterization.- Structural Characterization of Aerogels.- Mechanical Characterization of Aerogels.- Thermal Properties of Aerogels.- Permeability of Aerogels.- Simulation and Modeling of Aerogels Using Atomistic and Mesoscale Methods.- Part C: Oxide Based Aerogels.- SiO2 aerogels.- Hydrophobic Silica Aerogels.- Superhydrophobic and Flexible Aerogels and Xerogels derived from organosilane precursors.- Sodium Silicate-based Aerogels.- A Robust Approach to Inorganic Aerogels: The Use of Epoxides in Sol-Gel Synthesis.- High Temperature Oxide Aerogels.- Preparation of TiO2 Aerogels-Like Materials under Ambient Pressure.- ZrO2 Aerogels.- Part D: Synthetic Polymer Aerogels.- Phenolic-type aerogels and derived carbons: the paradigms of resorcinol-formaldehyde and polybenzoxazine chemistries.- Isocyanate-derived aerogels and applications.- Aerogels from Engineering Polymers: Polyimide and Polyamide Aerogels.- Part E: Biopolymer Aerogels.- Cellulose Aerogels: Monoliths, Beads and Fibers.- Silica Biopolymer Aerogel Nanocomposites.- Polysaccharide (non-cellulosic) aerogels.- Nanocellulose Aerogels.- Potential of anisotropic cellulosic aerogels.- Part F: Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Aerogels.- Polymer Crosslinked Aerogels.- Improving Elastic Properties of Polymer-Reinforced Aerogels.- Aerogels containing metal, alloy and oxide nanoparticles embedded into dielectric matrices.- Tuning the physical properties of aerogels by spatially selective modification.- Aerogels through ultrasonically-assisted synthesis.- Part G: Carbon-Based Aerogels.- Preparation and Application of Carbon Aerogels.- Nanocarbons: Diamond, Fullerenes, Nanotubes and Graphene Aerogels.- Nanotube Aerogels made through Elastic Smoke.- Part H: Frontier / Emerging Aerogels.- Chalcogenide Aerogels.- Fluorinated and Fluoride Inorganic Aerogels.- Nanoparticle-Based Inorganic Aerogels.- Metal aerogels.- Noble Metal Aerogels.- Nanoporous metal foams made by combustion synthesis.- Interpenetrating phenolic/oxide networks and carbothermal synthesis of metallic aerogels as energetic materials.- Synthesis of largescale nanoporous metallic networks by PVD.- Part I: Applications.- Aerogels and Sol-Gel Composites as Nanostructured Energetic Materials.- Aerogel as thermal super-insulating materials: an overview.- Aerogels as platforms for chemical sensors.- Aerogels for Electrochemical energy storage applications.- Transparent Silica Aerogel Blocks for High-Energy Physics Research.- Aerogels for fusion target fabrication.- Porous Glasses, Binary Glasses and Composite Glasses from Aerogels.- Aerogels for Environmental Applications.- Aerogels for Pollution Mitigation.- Application of Aerogels in Optical Devices.- Biomedical Applications of Aerogels.- in vivo Biomedical Applications of Aerogels.- Pharmaceutical Applications of Aerogels.- Applications of Aerogels in Space Exploration.- Airbone Ultrasonic Transducer.- Aerogels for foundry applications.- Aer()sculpture: A Free-Dimensional Space Art.- Aerogels from industrial waste.- Part J: Commercial Products and Industry Overview.- Industry overview.- Part K: Recipes and Designs.- Recipes and Designs.- Subject index.- Glossary, Acronyms and Abbreviations.