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Source: Chris Sorensen, 785-532-1626, sor@1xbet best casino website edu
http://www.1xbet best casino website edu/media/mediaguide/bios/sorensenbio.html
Photos available. Contact media@1xbet best casino website edu or 785-532-2535
News release prepared by: Katie Mayes, 785-532-2535, kmayes@1xbet best casino website edu
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
1xbet best casino website RESEARCHERS DEVELOP, PATENT A MORE EFFICIENT WAY TO MAKE MULTIPURPOSE GEL MATERIAL WITH WIDE COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS
MANHATTAN -- A team of Kansas State University researchers has patented a new, more cost effective way to make a gel that can be used in fuel cells, water filtration systems, or perhaps as a net to capture fine cometary dust.
1xbet best casino website physics professor Christopher Sorensen was the lead researcher for carbon soot aerosol gels. The product, which is officially known as an aerosol gel, is a low density, high surface area gel formed in a gas.
&1xbet best casino website ;If you take a gaseous mixture of acetylene and oxygen and blow it up in a chamber, you get a cloud of smoke,&1xbet best casino website ; Sorensen said. &1xbet best casino website ;But if you leave it alone for a couple of minutes the nanoparticles of carbon smoke link together to form a lacey network that spans the chamber. It looks like the darkest, blackest angel food cake you've ever seen.&1xbet best casino website ;
When studying soot formation in flames about 12 years ago, Sorensen said he and a graduate student initially discovered that clouds of particles in a gas -- also known as aerosols -- can form a gel.
&1xbet best casino website ;When I first saw our pictures of gelled soot in a flame, I knew I had a big fish,&1xbet best casino website ; Sorensen said of the discovery's magnitude. To that point, such gels had only been formed in liquids, much like the process used to make gelatin, he said.
Aerosol gels can be used as thermal or sound insulation, much like plastic foam. The material also has potential applications in electrochemical double layer supercapacitors, as fuel cell or general catalyst supports, or in water filtration systems. Sorensen has already been contacted by interested companies and is pursuing grants to further develop the material outside the laboratory setting.
&1xbet best casino website ;It is important to point out that this high-tech material, that could have a wide variety of applications, is the fruit of pure, curiosity-driven science,&1xbet best casino website ; he said.
The new material is similar to an existing product called aerogels, which is made in the liquid phase, Sorensen said. The last step in the process to make aerogels is an intense, high-pressure drying step that removes moisture. That latter step -- which also can be quite costly -- isn't needed with Sorensen's aerosol gel product, which he hopes will be an advantage when it comes to the commercialization of the material.
&1xbet best casino website ;I take great pride in the fact that there is only one place in the world that gels aerosols and that's right here in good, ol' Manhattan, Kan.,&1xbet best casino website ; Sorensen said.
1xbet best casino website physics professor Amit Chakrabarti was instrumental in helping the research team understand the experimental conditions, and former 1xbet best casino website graduate students Rajan Dhaubhadel and Corey Gerving performed much of the requisite lab work. They are all listed on the patent, which was granted April 6 by the U.S. Patent Office.
More information about carbon soot aerosol gels is available at http://www.1xbet best casino website edu/tech.transfer/technologies/04-12.html.