We live in a world surrounded by textiles- from the clothes we wear to the furnishings in our homes and workplaces. While these materials add comfort and functionality to our lives, they also pose a potential fire hazard. Understanding how fabrics respond to fire is paramount for safety, and a key metric in this understanding …

Background Aerogels, discovered in the late 1930s by chemist Samuel S. Kistler, are fascinating materials known for their light, airy, and translucent appearance and are considered one of the finest insulation materials available today. Aerogels have pores in the range of less than 100 nm in diameter. This morphology results in an ultra-low-density (about 0.0011 …