Back to results
US 10,590,043 B2Granted
Solvent management methods for gel production
AssigneeAspen Aerogels, Inc.
InventorsGeorge L Gould, Kevin A Schmidt, Christopher L Marlette, Shahrooz Zaghi
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Embodiments of the present invention describe a method for continuous manufacture of a gel material comprising the steps of: forming a gel sheet by dispensing a gel precursor mixture onto a moving element; allowing gelation to occur to the gel precursor mixture; and cooling the formed gel with a cooling system, thereby reducing the rate of solvent evaporation therefrom.
Claims19
A method for manufacture of a gel material comprising:
- (a) forming a gel sheet by dispensing a solution comprising a metal oxide gel precursor and a solvent onto a moving element at a first temperature, and allowing gelation of the gel precursor to occur;
- and
- (b) cooling at least one surface of the gel sheet on the moving element at a second temperature with at least one cooling system to reduce solvent evaporation from the gel sheet, wherein the second temperature is cooler than the first temperature.
A method for manufacture of a fiber-reinforced gel material comprising:
- (a) forming a fiber-reinforced gel sheet by combining a fibrous structure and a gel precursor solution comprising a solvent on a moving element at a first temperature, and allowing gelation of the gel precursor to occur;
- and
- (b) cooling at least one surface of the fiber-reinforced gel sheet on the moving element at a second temperature with at least one cooling system to reduce solvent evaporation from the gel sheet, wherein the second temperature is cooler than the first temperature.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.