Ren Lili, an associate professor in School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and her research group published their research paper named ��n Easy Way To Prepare Monolithic Inorganic Oxide Aerogels��in Angewandte Chemie International Edition (2014, Volume 53 (38), Pp10147-10149). In addition, they received a Letter of Congratulation from the editorial department of Angewandte Chemie, informing that their article was evaluated as ��ery Important Paper (VIP)�� It is reported that only less than 5% of the manuscripts in this journal will receive such a positive evaluation.
Inorganic oxide aerogels have unique thermal, optical, electrical, magnetic, and chemical properties, which result in them potentially having a broad range of applications. However, their preparation is commonly based on a supercritical drying method, which greatly limits real applications of aerogels and their commercialization. Here Ren�� group demonstrated a general method for drying wet gels to form aerogels that was based on the sublimation of organic solvent. The organic solvent must have a low surface tension, undergo sublimation easily, and have a high freezing point to allow the rapid synthesis of monolithic inorganic oxide aerogels under vacuum conditions. This cost-effective process will facilitate application of aerogel materials. This approach may also be used for the preparation of other porous materials, whose theoretical and practical applications should be investigated.
