The present paper describes the comparative studies on the hydrophobic and physical properties of the tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) based silica aerogels prepared by two step sol-gel process followed by supercritical drying. Silica alcogels were prepared by keeping the molar ratio of TEOS:methanol (MeOH):H2O (acidic):H2O (basic) constant at 1:33:3.5:3.5 with oxalic acid and ammonium hydroxide concentrations fixed at 0.001 and 1 M, respectively. In all, nine different co-precursors (CP) of the type RnSiX4-n, have been used. The aerogels have been characterized by density, porosity, percentage of volume shrinkage, optical transmission, contact angle and thermal conductivity measurements. The surface chemical modification of silica aerogels was confirmed by the presence of C-H and Si-C peaks at 2900, 1450 and 840 cm(-1), respectively, from the Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The microstructure of the aerogels was studied using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques. In addition to these studies, the stability of the hydrophobic aerogels against an organic impurity (methanol, in the present studies) in water has also been studied. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.