Ultralight nanofibre-assembled cellular aerogels with superelasticity and multifunctionality

Si, Yang; Yu, Jianyong; Tang, Xiaomin; Ge, Jianlong; Ding, Bin

doi:10.1038/ncomms6802

Cited by 966 publications

(787 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Remarkably, the pore morphologies of the sponge featured hierarchical order for reasons currently not yet understood, but which could account to the surprisingly good reversible compressibility and bendability, given their low densities, which was also confi rmed by the recent contribution of Ding et al [ 33 ] The mechanical properties of the novel polymer sponges close an important gap in an Ashby plot of compressibility versus density. It should not remain unmentioned that the compressive strength of the sponge could be tailored with negligible loss in porosity by several coating techniques which are presently under investigation in our lab.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 58%

Ultralight, Soft Polymer Sponges by Self‐Assembly of Short Electrospun Fibers in Colloidal Dispersions

Duan

Jiang

Jérôme

et al. 2015

Adv Funct Materials

168

148

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2850 wileyonlinelibrary.com large amounts of liquids and are excellent fi lters. Sponges with a volume of 1000 cm 3 can process up to 3000 L water h −1 . Furthermore, they can conduct light as discovered recently by Brümmer et al. [ 2 ] In addition, Natalio et al. reported on the formation of sponge skeletons shown to feature great bending strength and on the role of silicatein-α in the biomineralization of silicates in sponges, which accounts for the high reversible compressibility of sponges in spite of low densities. [ 3 ] Aizenberg et al. pointed out on the example of the so-called glass sponges ( Euplectella ) the important role of the hierarchical design from the nanometer to macroscopic length scale for structural materials. [ 4 ] The structural base of sponges are multiarmed spicules of silicate or calcium carbonate, which form highly porous structures of several hierarchical layers as shown in Figure 1 A,B. This leads to highly porous ultralight 3D materials (ultralight is defi ned when the density of material is <10 mg cm −3 ).[ 5 ] In recent literature, a variety of highly porous ultralight 3D materials were reported based on carbon, ceramics, and cellulose, which were characterized by porosities >99% and relatively high compressive strength. [6][7][8][9][10] Carbon and cellulose based sponges show ultralow densities and excellent mechanical properties but soft sponges with similar mechanical integrity are missing.Since spicules of natural sponges conspicuously resemble polymer fi bers, formation of such fi brous structures by electrospinning [ 11 ] could be a promising concept for the preparation of polymer-based biomimetic analogous of natural sponges and would open the huge potential of electrospun materials for 3D sponge-type structures. Indeed, 3D porous structures were prepared by electrospinning which was nicely summarized in comprehensive review in recent literature. [ 7 ] However, previous efforts of making 3D highly porous electrospun materials, for example, via ultrasonic treatment, resulted in higher densities and correspondingly lower porosities of <99%, [ 12 ] as well as relatively poor mechanical performance. Remarkably, Eichhorn et al. claimed that theoretically ultrahigh porosities of electrospun nonwovens >99% could not be achieved. [ 13 ] In contrast to these reports, we present here the formation of ultralight weight highly porous 3D electrospun polymer fi ber-based spongy structures with densities as low as 2.7 mg cm −3 corresponding to a porosity of 99.6%. They were prepared by electrospinning of a photo cross-linkable polymer followed by UV cross-linking, mechanical cutting, suspending cut fi bers in liquid dispersion, and freezedrying. These polymer sponges showed in analogy to natural Ultralight, Soft Polymer Sponges by Self-Assembly of Short Electrospun Fibers in Colloidal DispersionsGaigai Duan , Shaohua Jiang , Valérie Jérôme , Joachim H. Wendorff , Amir Fathi , Jaqueline Uhm , Volker Altstädt , Markus Herling , Josef Breu , Ruth Freitag , Seema Agarwal , and Andreas Gre...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 58%

Ultralight, Soft Polymer Sponges by Self‐Assembly of Short Electrospun Fibers in Colloidal Dispersions

Duan

Jiang

Jérôme

et al. 2015

Adv Funct Materials

168

148

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“…The nanofibrous separation membrane was fabricated using the commercially available fluoro-containing polymer poly (vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF-HFP) 31 via a simple electrospinning method [32][33][34][35] in which 1H, 1H, 2H, 2H-perfluorodecyltrimethoxysilane (PFDTMS) was doped as a regulator for tuning of the oleophobicity of the membrane. Figure 1 demonstrates the fabrication and separation process of the membrane.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Separation of organic liquid mixture by flexible nanofibrous membranes with precisely tunable wettability

Hou

Wang

et al. 2016

NPG Asia Mater

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Separation of liquid mixtures, especially organic liquid mixtures, is widely used in industrial processes but still faces challenges with respect to separation in a high-efficiency, low-energy mode. In this work, we report a flexible wettability-tunable nanofibrous membrane composed of a high-performance fluoro-polymer as the matrix and fluorosilane as a surface energy regulator that can be successfully applied in immiscible organic liquid mixture separation. The separation is achieved by tuning the surface energy of a membrane to a value between the surface tensions of two organic liquids. Moreover, for use in different mixed liquid systems, we programmatically designed nanofibrous membranes with the proper surface energy that could intercept the relatively high surface tension liquid and allow the low surface tension liquid to pass through. These membranes are expected to become a competitive candidate for complex organic chemical product separation, resource recycling, and environmental protection. INTRODUCTIONLiquid mixtures of solvents or reactants are ubiquitously applied in processes in the petrochemical, textile printing, food and medical industries. These complex liquid mixtures often must be separated after reaction for the purpose of product purification, resource recycling or harmless discharge. 1 Traditional liquid separation methods such as distillation and separation have exposed many drawbacks, including high-energy consumption, low flux and low efficiency, that dramatically increase the separation time and cost. 2 Therefore, challenges remain for the development of separation processes of organic liquid mixtures that are efficient, allow high throughput and conserve energy. Among various separation approaches, the membrane separation technique has been extensively proven as a high throughput and energy-efficient choice. [3][4][5] Over the past decade, various membranes with special wettability properties have been successfully prepared and have exhibited excellent performance in oil/water separation. The mechanisms of membrane separation are based on exact opposite wettabilities toward oil and water, including superhydrophobic/superoleophilic membranes 3,5-8 or superhydrophilic/superoleophobic membranes. 9-15 For example, superhydrophobic/oleophilic membranes have been prepared from various materials, including metals, polymers or even clothes and filter papers, that could intercept water and allow oil to pass through. [16][17][18][19][20] In addition, researchers have gained inspiration from oil-contaminantfree fish skin to fabricate oil-repellent hydrogel membranes that could separate oil from water. 21,22 Although significant progress has been achieved for membrane-based oil/water separation in the last few years, development of separation membranes for organic liquids is still highly limited because organic liquids usually possess a relatively lower surface tension than water. The difficulty in separation of organic liquid mixtures has increased because it is more difficult to build a super...

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“…During the cyclic compression strain of up to 50%, a 70% decrease of normalized resistance (termed negative piezoresistive behavior) was observed together with good recoverability and reversibility. 35 In our previous research, porous CNTs/thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) nanocomposites with a density of approximately 0.1 g cm…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lightweight conductive graphene/thermoplastic polyurethane foams with ultrahigh compressibility for piezoresistive sensing

et al. 2017

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Ultralight nanofibre-assembled cellular aerogels with superelasticity and multifunctionality

Cited by 966 publications

References 59 publications

Ultralight, Soft Polymer Sponges by Self‐Assembly of Short Electrospun Fibers in Colloidal Dispersions

Ultralight, Soft Polymer Sponges by Self‐Assembly of Short Electrospun Fibers in Colloidal Dispersions

Separation of organic liquid mixture by flexible nanofibrous membranes with precisely tunable wettability

Lightweight conductive graphene/thermoplastic polyurethane foams with ultrahigh compressibility for piezoresistive sensing

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