[ELI5] how dense is aerogel compared to other, traditionaly “light” materials?

Question

In the same vein, how big would a solid mass of aerogel have to be for an average person to not/just barely be able to lift it?

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

This is a bit hard to answer since there isn’t just one aerogel. Aerogel is a classification for a number materials with specific properties, but they can vary greatly. Aerogels can have a density of of anywhere between 0.0011 to 0.5 g/cm^(3). For comparison, polystyrene foam (Styrofoam) has a density of between 0.03 – 0.05g/cm^(3), so aerogels can be slight more dense or several orders of magnitude less dense. You can calculate the volume per mass or mass per volume of any given amount of aerogel. If we say we have an aerogel with a density of 0.002g/cm^(3), a mass the with the volume of a standard 39m^(3) shipping container would only weigh 78kg, or 172lbs.