by Silica gel is an amorphous and porous form of silicon dioxide (silica), consisting of an irregular tridimensional framework of alternating silicon and oxygen atoms with nonometer-scale voids and pores. The voids may contain water or some other liquids, or may be filled by gas or vacuum. In the last case, the material is properly called silica xerogel.
Silica xerogel with an average pore size of 2.4 nanometers has a strong affinity for water molecules and is widely used as a desiccant. It is hard and translucent, but considerably softer than massive silica glass or quartz; and remains hard when saturated with water.
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Silica xerogel is usually commercialized as coarse granules or beads, a few millimeters in diameter. Some grains may contain small amounts of indicator substance that changes color when they have absorbed some water. Small paper envelopes containing silica xerogel pellets, usually with a “do not eat” warning, are often included in dry food packages to absorb any humidity that might cause spoilage of the food. ‘Wet’ silica gel, as may be freshly prepared from alkali silicate solutions, may vary in consistency from a soft transparent gel, similar to gelatin or agar, to a hard solid, namely a water-logged xerogel. It is sometimes used in laboratory processes, for example to suppress convection in liquids or prevent setting of suspended particles.
Silica gel
Amorphous solid
In material science, an amorphous or non-crystalline solid is a solid that lacks the long-range order that is characteristic of a crystal. In some older books, the term has been used synonymously with glass. Nowadays, “glassy solid” or “amorphous solid” is considered to be the overarching concept, and glass the more special case: Glass is an amorphous solid stabilized below its glass transition temperature. Polymers are often amorphous. Other types of amorphous solids include gels, thin films, and nanostructured materials such as glass.
Amorphous metals have low toughness, but high strength
Amorphous materials have an internal structure made of interconnected structural blocks. These blocks can be similar to the basic structural units found in the corresponding crystalline phase of the same compound. Whether a material is liquid or solid depends primarily on the connectivity between its elementary building blocks so that solids are characterized by a high degree of connectivity whereas structural blocks in fluids have lower connectivity. In the pharmaceutical industry, amorphous drugs were shown to have higher bio-availability than their crystalline counterparts due to the high solubility of amorphous phase. However, certain compounds can undergo precipitation in their amorphous form. and they can decrease each other’s bio-availability if administered together.
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Porous
Porosity or void fraction is a measure of the void (i.e. “empty”) spaces in a material, and is a fraction of the volume of voids over the total volume, between 0 and 1, or as a percentage between 0% and 100%. Strictly speaking, some tests measure the “accessible void”, the total amount of void space accessible from the surface (cf. closed cell foam).
There are many ways to test porosity in a substance or part, such as industrial CT scanning. The term porosity is used in multiple fields including pharmaceuticals, ceramics, metallugy, materials, manufacturing, petrophysics, hydrology,earth sciences, soil mechanics, and engineering etc.
Silicon dioxide
Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula SiO2, most commonly found in nature as quartz and in various living organisms. In many parts of the world, silica is the major constituent of sand. Silica is one of the most complex and most abundant families of materials, existing as a compound of several minerals and as a synthetic product. Notable examples include fused quartz, fumed silica, silica gel, and aerogels. It is used in structural materials, microelectronics, and as components in the food and pharmaceutical industries.
