Cellulose nanofiber (CNF)-based aerogels are promising for various applications, but their poor water resistance and low underwater mechanical toughness hinder their applications. Here, we report the fabrication of covalent-cross-linked, CNF-based anisotropic aerogels through silane condensation and subsequent freeze-drying. The resulting aerogels show lamellar structures along the axial direction, enhanced hydrophilicity, excellent water resistance (soaked in water for 12 months without breakdown), and outstanding underwater mechanical toughness (without damage after 500 compression–release cycles). Also, the aerogels show an unusual underoil superhydrophilicity, which allows the aerogels to separate surfactant-stabilized water-in-oil emulsions through absorption with a high separation efficiency of 99.6%. Meanwhile, the excellent anti-oil-fouling ability endowed the aerogels with high recycle stability and reusability. Taking advantage of powerful antigravity water transportation (transfer rate of 3.75 mm/s at a height of 2.5 cm) imposed by the enhanced hydrophilicity and the interconnected radial-aligned channels, the aerogels were applied as structural components of the solar vapor generator, which showed a relatively high evaporation rate of 1.83 kg m–2 h–1 and water evaporation efficiency of 95.9% under one solar irradiation.

Fire has been giving rise to enormous loss of life and property worldwide annually. Early fire warning represents an active and effective means to avoid potential fire hazards before huge losses occur. Despite encouraging advances in early fire warning systems, to date there remains an urgent lack of the design of a durable, flexible, and universal early fire warning sensor for large‐area practical applications. Herein, facile fabrication of a durable, flexible, large‐scale early fire‐warning sensor is demonstrated through constructing a hierarchical flame retardant nanocoating, composed of graphene oxide, poly(dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate), and hexagonal boron nitride, on cotton fabric in combination with the parallelly patterned conductive ink as built‐in electrodes. As‐designed large‐scale sensor (>33 cm and extendable) exhibits a short alarming time of <3 s in response to external abnormal high temperature, heat, or fire. In addition to high washability, flexibility, resistance to abrasion and wear, this hierarchical nanocoating can self‐extinguish, thus enabling the sensor to continue warning during fire. This work offers an inventive concept to develop a universal and large‐scale very early fire‐monitoring platform, which opens up new opportunities for their practical applications in effectively reducing fire‐related casualties and economic losses.

Superamphiphobic surfaces are self-cleaning against various liquids and dirt particles but they are not resistant to trace organic contaminants, the accumulation of which on surface would cause a decline in the liquid repellency. In this work, superamphiphobic and photocatalytic fabrics are developed that allow the elimination of various organic substances from surface by using photocatalytic decomposition. The fabrics have a contact angle of 163, 156, and 158° to water, hexadecane, and sunflower oil, respectively. They are also demonstrated to be able to decompose methylene blue, oleic acid and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) under UV light. The removal of human body grease or laundry detergent from surface to recover the super-non-wettability was demonstrated through the natural sunlight exposure. The slight damage on superamphiphobicity caused by the photocatalytic activity can be cured with simple heat treatment. In addition, the superamphiphobic fabrics show excellent durability against abrasion and repeated washing. The photocatalytic and heat-curing strategy reported here may bring superamphiphobic fabrics one step closer to practical application in various fields.

Bead-on-string fibers, which were initially thought to be a "by-product" of the electrospun fibers, are widely observed in electrospinning, which is a convenient method to produce nanofibers. The electrospun bead-on-string fibers were thought to have detrimental properties and were generally discarded, but recently they have gained attention since they are considered to have promising applications in many fields, including tissue engineering, drug delivery, and air/water filtration, among others. This chapter is a comprehensive and systematic literature review that summarizes the processes, methods, vital influencing factors, formation conditions, morphology changes, and applications of the electrospun bead-on-string fibers. It helps to understand the current research status and to further understand the mechanism by which these bead-on-string fibers are formed.

Closed-cell, high internal phase emulsion (HIPE)templated polyHIPEs are promising for phase change material (PCM) encapsulation, but the removal of HIPE stabilizers from such monoliths is challenging. Here, we report the use of a reactive HIPE stabilizer to prepare closed-cell, PCM-encapsulated poly-HIPE monoliths for thermal energy storage application. The reactive stabilizer, end-capped Pluronic F127 with acrylate, was covalently incorporated into the polyHIPE macromolecular network simply through light-induced, interfacially initiated radical polymerization, omitting the need of stabilizer removal for conventional inert stabilizing surfactants. When a PCM, octodecane (OD), was used as the dispersed phase, OD-encapsulated polyHIPE monoliths were fabricated. The polyHIPE encapsulation slightly decreased the crystallization (heat release) temperature but, surprisingly, increased the melting (heat storage) temperature, facilitating latent heat storage for daily use. The monoliths exhibited extremely high heat capacity and showed high reusability. The simple fabrication, high stability/reusability, and high heat capacity enabled the OD-encapsulated monoliths to be an excellent candidate for latent heat storage and release.