Aerogels have been intensely studied during the past several decades due to the special properties for numerous applications. In this talk, I will give an overview of the research of aerogel production with a wide range of materials and their applications and will focus on two particular subjects. I will first talk about our recent development on graphene aerogels with highly controlled porosity and surface area as electrode materials for electrical double-layer capacitors. The high quality graphene aerogel electrodes with macro- and mesopores are produced from uniformly dispersed graphene suspension with few layer and large sheet size obtained by controlling electrochemical exfoliation of a bulk graphite crystal. This research provides a practical method for lightweight, high-performance and low-cost materials in the effective use of energy storage systems. In the second part, I will focus on the improved method for production of Copper nanowire (CuNW) aerosponges on a large scale and at low cost. The porous networks are obtained by direct assembly of the one-dimensional Cu nanowire in situ during their synthesis without specific crosslinking agent. Such a method offers not only great simplicity, but also excellent properties of the resulting bulk network, owing to the fact that the interconnecting nanowires can have much longer lengths (tens to a hundred micrometer) and high aspect ratio. Remarkable properties such as extremely low densities, high electrical conductivities, and remarkable mechanical properties (flexible, elastic, and robust) can be achieved by tuning the synthesis conditions. Furthermore, these Cu aerosponges exhibited excellent wicking behavior as compared to the sintered Cu samples in our wicking tests, suggesting their potential for heat exchange applications in heat pipes and other two-phase thermal management devices.