most preferred embodiment of the present invention simultaneously has superior mechanical electrical and barrier properties compared to unfilled silicone elastomers furthermore the current invention provides a method to detect internal damage within the material through conductance measurements so when used in the industry it possesses health monitoring capability which can be crucial for applications using the nanocomposite the product also has lower density than commercially available silicone and therefore can reduce the energy cost associated with transporting and using the product fgs can be produced via a process that has been described in published articles h c schniepp j l li m j mcallister et al j phys chem b 110 8535 39 2006 m j mcallister j l li d h adamson h c schniepp et al chem materials 19 4396 4404 2007 the entire contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference and the 39 432 application noted above in a preferred embodiment of the present invention method for forming the nanocomposite fgs is dispersed in a polar solvent such as tetrahydrofuran and probe sonicated then the suspension is combined with a vinyl terminated polysiloxane preferably a vinyl terminated polydimethylsiloxane and the polar solvent is completely evaporated off an appropriate crosslinker and hydrosilylation catalyst preferably a platinum complex catalyst are.