The editorialized HN title "now cheap enough to produce to be used as housing insulation" looks incorrect. According to the article, this is only priced where it makes sense in some corner cases (and that is according to the company itself).
"It's still more expensive upfront but the costs have fallen to the point that it can make sense in certain cases, particularly masonry or curved walls, according to Aspen Aerogels."
And regardless, the company is projecting the performance in houses without long term evidence.
"The company has done a number of installations... including a housing project in Rhode Island last year... The payback was just over five years..."
This means, of course, that the expected payback is five years. Who knows how good the installation job was, and how generous the assumptions made when estimating the payback period.
Mostly manufacturing, I believe. If memory serves me, the process involves supercritical drying--you put a liquid-based gel into a vessel under very high temperature and pressure until the gas/liquid states become interchangeable, then gradually remove the supercritical fluid, tweaking the temperature as needed, until enough fluid is removed. Once brought back to STP, the gel structure is left behind in the same form it had with the liquid medium, but with all the liquid removed.
Mistakes at almost any step in the process will permanently ruin the batch of gel, of course.
From what I remember from my Intro to Materials class, aerojels have to be made from a sol-gel process, meaning that at any period the quantity is going to be inherently small. You have to introduce the right chemicals at specific periods so that the structure you want is made correctly. It's a very delicate process. I'm not sure if there is a way to scale this process to the point it can be used for insulation purposes, but the material properties are phenomenal.
I made a number of "perpetual motion machines" with my dad at that age for science fair projects; all told, the parts and labor would have run to over a hundred dollars if they'd been commissioned jobs.
The fact that this kid made aerogels (which is cool!) doesn't mean that just anyone can make them in quantity easily and cheaply. He produced small pieces with a lot of labor (and, based on the article, some university charity). That's not insulation. It's a 5th-grade science project.
"It's still more expensive upfront but the costs have fallen to the point that it can make sense in certain cases, particularly masonry or curved walls, according to Aspen Aerogels."
And regardless, the company is projecting the performance in houses without long term evidence.