Silica Aerogel

Silica Aerogel was recently in news. A lot of information available about the material can be overwhelming, so let's focus on the important points which can be important from prelims point of view.

Salient features of Silica Aerogel:-

• Developed by ISRO to use as a thermal insulator in its cryogenic fuel tanks
• Dubbed as 'Blue Air' for being a super lightweight substance
• Extremely low thermal/heat conductivity, almost zero
• Low density substance
• High specific surface area, can be applied on any surface for thermal insulation

While there is a lot more to this material, the points mentioned above should suffice for cracking any prelims question based on Silica Aerogel.