Making Probably The Most Heat Resistant Material

hello everyone I will look at the huge Rockets being built now and I'm amazed not only is this giant 50 MERS tall but it can also return to Earth by itself and withstands enormous temperatures during re-entry into the atmosphere at speeds over 17,000 kmph apparently to withstand such harsh conditions it has some super heat resistant materials attached to its body I wonder what the thermal protection of such a rocket is made of and if it can be made by oneself well let's figure it out to find out what the cladding of new rockets is made of I decided to First search for information on the internet turns out that it is made of silicon dioxide which is essentially ordinary sand but if you search for photos of such cladding online it doesn't really look like sand most likely the silicon dioxide is in some other form here to know for sure it would be good to obtain that very cladding from the rocket for study after several unsuccessful launches of that rocket fragments of its cladding were found around the world and sold at auctions but their price didn't particularly please me so I will have to find out its composition by some other method that is most likely by trial and error first let's take a look at what heat resistant and thermal insulation materials containing silicon dioxide are available and which one would be best suited for making rocket cladding the most well-known and commonly used is ordinary fire brick which is made from fire Clays containing about 40% aluminum oxide and 50% silicone oxide such as the rest consists of various impurities the melting temperature of these components exceeds 1500° C which makes the resulting material quite resistant to heating however under certain conditions it can still melt as in one of my previous experiments here we tried to melt zirconium using an oxygen torch but in the end zirconium did not Melt while the fire brick underneath did start to flow a bit however fire bricks although quite heat resistant are also very heavy so it is not possible to make rocket cladding from them in addition to Bricks the store also sells what is called potassium wool which also withstands very high temperatures without melting or losing its properties it consists like fire brick of a mixture of melted aluminum and silicone oxides the only problem is that it is fragile and easily crumbles in your hands such a material is unlikely to withstand the immense speed when the rocket enters the dense layers of the atmosphere in search of other fireproof materials I decided to turn to some rather unusual ones who knows they might also be suitable as Rocket cladding in the 1980s a certain Morris Wald invented an unusual fireproof material called Starlight at first glance it looks very much like those same resilient tiles so I decided to try making it as well fortunately the components for making this material can be bought in any store namely regular starch baking soda and PVA glue first you need to mix starch and baking soda in specific proportions you see on the screen and then mix them well in dry form after that I pour PVA glue into this mixture and give the substance the consistency of regular dough this took quite some time and theoretically the material is now ready to be used as the first demonstration test I decided to take a regular chicken egg and coat it with Starlight on one side after which I began to burn it with a torch for 1 and 1/2 minutes interestingly when heating this material it began to form something resembling charcoal foam which I assume plays the role of thermal insulation but how can you chew the egg after 1 and 1/2 minutes of intense heating with a powerful torch surprisingly it turned out to be even slightly warm and its contents remained liquid for another test I placed some staright on my hand after which I began to burn it with the same torch yes you can hold on for about 20 seconds but then this material starts to heat up and it becomes uncomfortable yet my hand did not get hurt at all in principle the same staright can be dried but it is unlikely to be used as Rocket cladding as it easily gets wet in humid air and during atmospheric entry it will most likely just burn up but for demonstration yes

the material is quite interesting after all I got tired of pointing fingers at the sky and decided to look for something similar to the heat resistant tiles of the American rocket at auctions for study unfortunately there were no tiles from the rocket itself but Lux smiled upon me as someone from Canada was selling heat resistant tiles from the Buran the Soviet reusable space shuttle which unfortunately flew only once essentially the thermal protection of both the rocket and the burin should have similar properties it's interesting of course how the heat resistant tiles from the bur ended up in Canada but that's not the point I'm buying a few weeks later I received the package the very heat resistant tile from the Buran it turned out that it is not from the shuttle itself but from either a model or a copy as the seller indicated that it is from some Buran 2. 0 but most probably most likely it should have the same properties as the original tiles from the bur that flew in space I think that for the sake of science one can even have a little fun with this piece of History using a powerful gas torch yes apparently this is the very thermal protection as such a tile easily withstood a minute at a temperature of 1 1200° C and it cooled down almost instantly which is even noticeable on the thermal camera after cooling down I also decided to check how this tile would heat up from a sufficiently powerful gas torch for which I started heating it from the backside and monitoring the temperature with the thermal camera the heating time was 2 minutes after which the tile began to gradually heat up but only by a few degrees now this is what I call thermal protection despite its large size such a tile weighs about 200 g which is quite light for its large volume if you actually look at the backside you can see the material from which this thermal protection is made by feel and sound it resembles very light wood although it is most likely some form of foam silicon dioxide I think I need to try to find the composition of such thermal protection on the internet after searching again in Russian I could only find that the white part of this tile which is the main thermal insulator consists of ultra thin and pure quartz fibers interestingly at first glance this white substance does not resemble fibers at all apparently there is some technology here that is not mentioned much on Russian language sites after some thought I decided that in Essence burn was an improved copy of the American shuttle which had a similar design in thermal protection therefore I decided to look for the technology for making heat resistant tiles used in the shuttle I think they wouldn't differ much from the thermal protection of Buran after a couple of hours searching on American sites I found this 1976 patent which described in great detail the technology for producing that very white part of the shuttle's thermal protection at first glance there's nothing complicated here I just need to find suitable materials it took me a few months the most challenging part was Finding and purchasing this Ultra Pure quartz wool which essentially is the microfibers used in the production of heat resistant protection for burn and the shuttle they are produced only in a few countries around the world and are quite expensive a kilogram of such fiber certainly costs €120 feels like very high quality visous cotton wool at first glance you would never think that this material can literally withstand temperatures up to, 1600° C well after I obtained this rare quartz fiber I can try to make that very skin for Baran just a little to start according to the patent you need to measure a certain amount of quartz wool I took 115 G at first I thought about tearing it into small pieces but due to the formation of a large amount of not very useful quartz dust I decided to cut it with a knife instead after I weighed the required amount of quartz fiber it needs to be dissolved or at least evenly distributed in water this task is not the easiest as the quartz fibers here are quite long and strong therefore I decided to try grinding them with an immersion blender to my surprise this method worked brilliantly and after a couple of minutes of grinding I ended up with something resembling quartz pope now according to the patent it is necessary to add binding agents to it one of which is idal silicon dioxide fortunately unlike in 1976 this substance can now be easily found even in phes as an absorbent for my experiment I will need exactly 13 G which I weigh out into a glass cup in addition as a primary binder I also need to add 9 G of regular starch potato starch will do as well to help this mixture blend better with the quartz pul I add a little more water and mix it with the same immersion

blender interestingly the initially thick mixture became much thinner when mixed apparently the colloidal silicon dioxide binds better with water molecules during such mixing all that's left is to combine the quartz pulp with the binding components and the kitchen blender is once again indispensable here after all that's left is to get rid of the excess water using regular cheesecloth and a collander as a result I ended up with this lump of quartz fiber along with the binder well next according to the patent oh it seems I got carried away and missed an important step to alkalize the obtained mixture with ammonia well okay I'll have to dilute everything with water and add more ammonia to the obtained mixture after mixing I checked the pH level using indicator paper and according to the instructions it should not be higher than 10 that's basically acceptable now all that's left is to get rid of the excess water again but I can't squeeze much moisture out of this lump with just my bare hands I need something like a press it's good that I decided in advance to make a kind of homemade and very primitive mold from an unconventional tin bottle in my new lab first I need to cut off the bottom of this container which I decided to do with a Dremel as I didn't have a grinder on hand the Dremel came with metal discs but if I had known how low quality they were I would have slightly borrowed a grinder from friends after some time with great difficulty I somehow cut off the necessary part of the bottle in which I also made several holes for water drainage all that's left is to remove the burs and voila the Primitive mold is ready I am now placing my quartz pulp into it layering everything with GW at first I squeezed out the excess water just with my hand but in the end I decided to press everything down as best as I could using my weight most of the water came out now all that is left is to remove the resulting workpiece from the mold and it's not that difficult to do with the help of gauze the only thing that significantly bothered me was that I lost a lot of binder during the manufacturing process which was partially washed out during the first pressing when I had forgotten to add pulp to the mixture so from the remaining quartz fiber I decided to make another batch of quartz pulp this time clearly following all the instructions from the patent guide in the end after removing the excess moisture I ended up with two more of these round pieces which turned out even a bit better than the previous ones now these work pieces need to be thoroughly dried as they all currently weigh over 200 g which means they still contain a lot of water I decided to dry the obtained round pieces in a regular oven at a temperature of 125° C for 15 hours well see you tomorrow after the drying and cooling time the blanks became much lighter which is clearly visible on the scales now these discs are already very light but they are still not completely uniform and in order for them to become true high temperature thermal insulation they need to be fired and not in a regular oven but in a muffle furnace at a temperature of 1200° C nevertheless I now need to fire my quartz fiber blanks to make everything faster and save on electricity I decided to fire them all together simply laying potassium with new cotton to begin with according to the patent the blanks need to be gradually heated so that the residual moisture can evaporate and cracks do not form therefore I first heat them to approximately 500° C and keep them at that temperature for half an hour during this time the starch begins to slowly burn out of the blanks causing them to darken slightly after that I raise the temperature to 700° C and heat the blanks thoroughly for another 30 minutes now they have turned white which means the starch has completely burned out all that's left is to raise the temperature to 1200° C and keep the blanks at that temperature for 2 hours so that the quartz fiber fuses together with the colloidal silicon dioxide as a binding agent well at the 2hour Mark I turn off the furnace and let the blanks cool down interestingly during the cooling of the Furnace I noticed that its insulation cracked quite a bit during the high temperature firing which was unexpected I don't think it should be like that apparently Chinese furnaces are not very high quality now write in the comments what you think about this after the furnace cools down I take out the blanks and in my opinion they turned out just perfect during centering all the cracks simply disappeared and the resulting thermal insulation samples turned out to be very light without internal voids and quite even now they really feel like that white insulation from the tiles of the Baran now it is advisable to process them to give them a more even shape for this I first saw off a thin layer from them using a metal cutting blade it doesn't require much force here as this material is cut quite easily and of course I do all this under a fume Hood

to avoid breathing in quartz dust after rough processing I sand the resulting blanks with a regular cloth fortunately this material is very soft and pliable making it even easier to work with than foam I decided to give one of the blanks a square shape similar to the tiles from Burn of course the thickness of my homemade thermal protection is not the same as in the original but for now I am satisfied with the result the only thing that currently distinguishes my homemade samples from the original thermal protection is the coating or rather its absence as far as I understand heat resistant tiles with some black coating were used for the cladding of the lower part of both the shuttle and burn likely for better heat dissipation how to make this coating once again American patents come to my Aid in one of them I found how to make a special heat resistant black paint for the white thermal protection that I made earlier for this I will first need borosilicate glass powder which I decided to make from several old heat resistant test tubes in addition to Glass 1 and2 gr of silicon diboride will also be needed a black compound that acts as a high temperature alloying agent in addition 20 G of malum disilicide need to be added to the mixture which will create a thermal emission layer in simple terms it will be better to dissipate heat from the overheated surface of the thermal protection all that's left is to grind all the components well for which I took a regular coffee grinder yes it's better not to breathe this dust according to the patent it is better to apply this mixture using a spray gun but I don't have one so I simply mixed the resulting mixture with ethyl alcohol and began applying it to the quartz workpiece using a regular brush now all that's left is to bake this Coating in my already crumbling oven at a temperature of 1200° C for an hour interestingly even with a quick opening of the oven it is evident how much faster the painted thermal protection begins to cool compared to the White Walls of the chamber this is all because a black body radiates heat better than a white one therefore the lower part of both the shuttle and the burn was covered with black heat resistant tiles so that they could cool down during entry into the dense layers of the atmosphere after cooling my painted thermal protection tile can be examined up close as can be seen at least on one side the coating turned out to be quite even although after centering such a tile has shrunk a bit apparently part of the quartz fiber fused with the black coating it is interesting to see how quickly it will cool down when heated with a gas torch yes as can be seen this happens quite quickly as evidenced by the readings of the thermal camera especially when viewed from the back side of the tile the same tile only white cools down a bit more slowly although due to its greater thickness it does not heat up as much in addition to the round heat resistant tile I decided to make a small square one also painting it with a black coating after which I baked it in the oven if we compare how my homemade tiles behave compared to the original from Bano the difference is not particularly noticeable the black coating re-emits residual heat very well while the quartz filling prevents heat from penetrating deeply into such thermal protection in the end I believed in my homemade thermal protection so much that I decided to protect my hand from the hot flame of my quite powerful gas burner in principle it holds up calmly for about 30 seconds and I did not feel the slightest heat on the backside of such homemade thermal protection moreover certainly even my small tile can protect the hand from the hot flame of the burner so in principle I absolutely believe that I have created that very heat resistant tile from American Rockets or from the burn space shuttle well I think after watching this video you learned how to make a real shuttle cladding or for that American rocket in semi-handmade conditions but if you like this video as always don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel to learn more new and interesting things