PLZ HELP IM FAILING SCIENCE Scientists hope to use aerogels to aid in oil spill cleaning process by floating aerogels on water where oil has been spilled. For this to occur how would the density of aerogels compare to the density of seawater? a a. The mass of aerogels must be larger. b b. The volume and mass of aerogels must be larger c c. For the same mass, the aerogel must take up less space. d d. For the same volume, the aerogel must have a smaller mass.
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Cleaning up oil spills and metal contaminates in a low-impact, sustainable and inexpensive manner remains a challenge for companies and governments globally.

But a group of researchers at UW–Madison is examining alternative materials that can be modified to absorb oil and chemicals. If further developed, the technology may offer a cheaper and “greener” method to absorb oil and heavy metals from water and other surfaces.

Aerogels, which are highly porous materials and the lightest solids in existence, are already used in a variety of applications, ranging from insulation and aerospace materials to thickening agents in paints. The aerogel prepared in Gong’s lab is made of cellulose nanofibrils (sustainable wood-based materials) and an environmentally friendly polymer. Furthermore, these cellulose-based aerogels are made using an environmentally friendly freeze-drying process without the use of organic solvents.

It’s the combination of this “greener"material and its high performance that got Gong’s attention.

“For this material, one unique property is that it has superior absorbing ability for organic solvents — up to nearly 100 times its own weight,” she says. “It also has strong absorbing ability for metal ions.”

Treating the cellulose-based aerogel with specific types of silane after it is made through the freeze-drying process is a key step that gives the aerogel its water-repelling and oil-absorbing properties.

alkaline metals are lithium, sodium, rubidium, potassium, cesium and francium.

alkali metals have electronegativity from 0.7 to 1, lowest in periodic table of elements, which means that alkali metals (i group in periodic table) has positive oxidation number in compounds.

electronegativity is a chemical property that describes the tendency of an atom to attract a shared pair of electrons towards itself.

alkaline metals (far left in main group) have lowest ionizations energy and easy remove valence electrons,

for example, potassium is the alkali metal and has a single valence electron in the outer electron shell.

electron configuration of potassium is: ₁₉k 1s²2s²2p⁶3s²3p⁶4s¹.

they can not exist alone in nature, because they are very reactive.

your answer is a. the enthalpy of formation for a pure element in its standard state is always positive.