Abstract
Silica aerogel with ultra low density and high porosity has been focused on versatile application due to its fascinating properties. Ambient drying process of waterglass, in this study was researched to fabricate a crack-free monolith body in the point view of cost effective way. Wet gel was obtained by removing of $Na^{+}$ ions in waterglass, which contains 8 wt% of $SiO_{2}$. Xylene, which has a low vapor pressure, was used as a solution substitutor to prevent the formation a cracks during drying. Various surface modifiers like as hexamethyldisilazane (HMDSZ), trimethylchlorosilane (TMCS), methyltriethoxylsilane (MTES), methyltrimethoxysilane (MTMS) and phenyltriethoxysilane (PTES) were used in order to improve hydrophobicity of the waterglass Silica aerogel. Some physical properties of the surface modified aerogels were investigated by FT-IR, TGA, BET and SEM. Hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity of Silica aerogel is attributed to the Si-OH bond and the non-polar C-H bond groups on the surface of aerogel. Crack-free waterglass aerogel with >90 % of porosity, 17 nm of pore size and <0.15 $g/cm^{3}$ of density was prepared. HMDSZ and TMCS are effective as a surface modifier
