Synthesis of tubular silica fiber via all‐aqueous microfluidics for geopolymer regulation

Abstract

Lightweight hollow ceramic microfibers/microparticles hold promising prospects in numerous applications. To date, it remains a challenge to develop a fabrication strategy that well balances product quality and efficiency. In this article, an all-aqueous microfluidic method was proposed to prepare tubular polymeric fiber as the preceramic template. The relevant dimensional parameters could be promptly regulated via simple flow rate control. This approach could serve as a general technical route to preparing different kinds of ceramics by switching the types of nanoparticles. Here, silica nanoparticles were introduced and the ceramic microfiber could be got via calcination. Afterward, the tubular silica microfiber was employed to synthesize geopolymer composite by mold casting. The chemically formed interfacial bonding between the silica microfiber and geopolymer matrix was confirmed by elemental analysis. The addition of 10% volume fraction silica microfiber could not only increase the flexural modulus of geopolymer composite by 3.5 times but also effectively inhibited crack propagation under thermal circumstances.

Effective colloidal emulsion droplet regulation in flow-focusing glass capillary microfluidic device via collection tube variation

“…Colloidal emulsion droplets derived from microuidic technology have emerged and served as delicate carriers and fundamental templates in a myriad of applications ranging from chemical analysis, [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] biomedical engineering, [8][9][10][11][12][13][14] and materials synthesis, [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] to the cosmetic industry, [23][24][25][26] etc. The innate small-volume endows the colloidal emulsion droplets with a series of advantages including a high surface aspect ratio, trace amount of reagent consumption, ultra-fast heat, and mass transfer as well as pronounced interfacial effects, which has laid a solid foundation for their practical usage.…”

Effect of Eccentricity Difference on the Mechanical Response of Microfluidics-Derived Hollow Silica Microspheres during Nanoindentation

“…In recent years, microfluidics-enabled soft manufacturing has emerged as a robust technological means to fabricate liquid templates with well-controlled composition and morphology, which has already innovated the fabrication approach in various fields, encompassing chemistry, biology, physics, and engineering [ 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 ]. The easily prepared double-emulsion droplets with a core–shell structure possess a series of advantages, including controllable compositions, adjustable dimensions, and a higher degree of structural homogeneity, which have already been exploited to fabricate hollow microspheres via the sintering of ceramic nanoparticles inside the shell solution [ 53 , 54 , 55 ].…”

Three Dimensional Printing of Bioinspired Crossed-Lamellar Metamaterials with Superior Toughness for Syntactic Foam Substitution

“…As a typical sort of architectural material, the performance of a mechanical metamaterial can be effectively regulated through the rational design of the architecture and dimension as well as composition selection. Thus, a variety of prominent functionalities have been achieved including ultrahigh strength-to-density ratio, − great energy absorption capability, − damage tolerance, − recoverability, − etc., which can be barely realized by traditional materials, even if they were reinforced with a strengthening phase to form composites. − In general, mechanical metamaterials are organized by the periodical stacking of unit cells with a dimension range spanning multiple orders of magnitude. This formation manner directly results in the homogeneous internal structure if both the dimension and composition remain constant simultaneously.…”