Superelastic aerogels have attracted great attention due to their rapid shape recovery performance and plethora of promising applications, including clothing thermal insulation, contaminants separation, and efficient compressive sensors. However, it is difficult to construct superelastic cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) aerogels owing to the film-like cell walls formed during freeze drying. Herein, a dual ice-templating assembly (DITA) strategy wasdesigned to fabricate superelastic CNF aerogels. CNF was assembled into sub-micron fibers in liquid nitrogen environment (-196°C), followed by freezing (-20°C) and freeze drying. The resulting CNF aerogels exhibit excellent elasticity at both ambient and extremely low temperatures, including full shape recovery after being subjected to 80% strain. After modification through chemical vapor deposition with organosilane, the CNF aerogel exhibitssuperhydrophobicity (164° water contact angle), superabsorbancy (489 times of its own weight), low thermal conductivity (0.023 W/mk-1), as well as high-efficiency contaminants separation and self-cleaning properties. SuperelasticCNF aerogels assembled using this novel DITA strategy that enables facile design are multifunctional with extraordinary mechanical robustness, providing new insight into their broad applications.

Superelastic cellulose nanofibrils aerogel by dual ice-templating assembly

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.