Aerogels act as incredibly powerful insulators ¹⁾

Insulation Film is a hyper-thin aerogel substance, which can be applied to surfaces to act as an incredibly efficient, if fragile, thermal insulator. Usually supplied with a pressure-sensitive adhesive, Insulation Film can be applied to armour or other rigid or semi-rigid surfaces to protect from sources of prolonged cold or heat. Compared with other aerogels, Insulation Film is somewhat flexible, and has been subjected to additional treatments to enhance its resilience. It's incredible insulating properties are derived from its dendritic internal structure, and the immobilised gas pockets that fill the majority of the structure. On a nano-scale, Insulation Film consists of a vast number of tiny bubbles of gas, frozen in cured silicate polymer resin.

Insulation film was originally developed to coat specialist laboratories that required precise temperature and as an additional hull layer in starships and space stations. While most of these applications can use a more mass-produced version of the film, it is often thicker, heavier or more rigid. The original formulation provides by far the most effective ratios of weight, flexibility and insulation characteristics required for personal protection in the most hostile environments, despite it being more difficult to make.

Insulation film is made by forming a silica-polymer gel between a pair of electrostatically repellant metal plates placed extremely close together. Once cured (a process which takes several weeks of constant monitoring and fine adjustment of conditions), the liquid components of this gel are removed by careful vacuum-dehydration and the resultant aerogel is coated with top and bottom protective layers. After several additional processing steps to reinforce it, an extremely lightweight film is produced, less than half a millimetre thick. This film can be rolled up for easy transport, and applied to various surfaces by a trained expert for protection from the elements. Unfortunately, while it is quite durable for materials of its class, it will still begin to wear away after a short period of use under the stress of movement and deformation.

Insulation Film is a type of Exotic Reagent - an Exotic Substance related to Corporeal Science. A physrep of some kind of rolled film, or a small container can be used to represent measures of this substance, small samples can represent one or two measures, while larger physrep samples can hold more.

A measure of Insulation Film can be applied to a lammied suit of Armour to provide some protection from Minor HEAT or COLD Environments. This stacks with other sources of protection from HEAT or COLD Environments. If you are entering a HEAT or COLD Environment, the Encounter Referee will usually let you know, and may ask if you have any relevant protection. Even if the Environment effect is more powerful than this substance can protect from alone you will still have greater protection than none - you may be able to go longer before suffering a Condition, or may suffer a less severe version of a Hazard-related Condition. It is important to note that this substance does not protect against weapon attacks or other direct sources of harm - only to the more distributed hazard of an Environment. The boost provided by this substance wears off 2 hours after application. If your character is in an Environment causing HEAT or COLD Conditions when this substance wears off, you should notify the encounter Referee, either as soon as is convenient, or at the end of the current encounter.

As with all Exotic Substances, a character with at least 1 rank in the relevant speciality (Corporeal Science in this case) can spend 1 minute of appropriate roleplaying to apply 1 measure of Insulation Film to a suit of Armour. After this roleplaying, they should unpeel the sticker that represents this substance, and stick it to the device's lammie.