Silica gel is put through a carefully controlled drying process that turns the liquid in the gel into gas.

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The top coat contains silica gel, an absorbent material that can suck up nerve gas and stop it getting inside a vehicle.

ECONOMIST: Monitor: A good kind of gas-guzzling | The

This year he showed how, by injecting the cells into a matrix made from silica nanotubes wrapped in a sol-gel, he was able to keep a cell alive for six months.

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