Patent ID: 11912579
Assignee: ASPEN AEROGELS, INC.
Field: Materials, metallurgy (Chemistry)
Classification: CPC C  B | IPC B  C

Claim 0:
1. A method comprising:
providing a precursor solution comprising silica gel precursor materials and a solvent, wherein the precursor solution includes greater than 30% of at least one silica gel precursor material which is an alkylsilane having only one alkyl group attached to silicon;
providing a basic catalyst solution wherein the basic catalyst is a catalytic amount of guanidine hydroxide, and wherein the basic catalyst allows the silica gel precursor materials to transition into a gel composition;
combining the precursor solution and the basic catalyst solution;
allowing the silica gel precursor materials to transition into a gel composition; and
extracting at least a portion of the solvent from the gel composition to obtain a silica-based aerogel composition, wherein the silica-based aerogel composition is intrinsically hydrophobic without surface modification with a hydrophobizing agent.