Self-reinforcement of Light, Temperature-Resistant Silica Nanofibrous Aerogels with Tunable Mechanical Properties
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Self-reinforcement of Light, Temperature-Resistant Silica Nanofibrous Aerogels with Tunable Mechanical Properties Tao Huang2 · Yue Zhu2 · Jie Zhu2 · Hao Yu1,2 · Qinghua Zhang1,2 · Meifang Zhu1,2 Received: 29 July 2020 / Revised: 22 August 2020 / Accepted: 1 September 2020 © Donghua University, Shanghai, China 2020
Abstract Silica aerogels have attracted significant interest in thermal insulation applications because of their low thermal conductivity and great thermal stability, however, their fragility has limited their application in every-day products. Herein, a selfreinforcing strategy to design silica nanofibrous aerogels (SNFAs) is proposed using electrospun SiO2 nanofibers as the matrix and a silica sol as a high-temperature nanoglue. Adopting this approach results in a strong and compatible interfacial interaction between the S iO2 fibers and the silica sol, which results in the SNFAs exhibiting high-temperature-resistant and tunable mechanical properties from elastic to rigid. Furthermore, additional properties such as low density, high thermal insulation performance, and fire-resistance are still retained. The self-reinforcing method described herein may be extended to numerous other new ceramic aerogels that require robust mechanical properties and high-temperature resistance. Keywords Nanofiber aerogel · Silica · Electrospinning · Self-reinforcement
Introduction Aerogels are materials with special properties such as low density, ρ, and thermal conductivity, large surface area, high porosity, and thus have been widely used in thermal, catalytic, electrical, environmental and energy applications [1–3]. Since aerogels were first produced in the 1930s [4], the development of such super-insulating and ultralight materials has received significant attention. In particular, aerogels composed of a ceramic backbone such as silica exhibit super heat resistance and have been developed, principally as components for thermal insulating composite materials, for use in extreme conditions [5–7]. Typically, Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s42765-020-00054-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Hao Yu [email protected] 1
Key Laboratory of High Performance Fibers and Products, Ministry of Education, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China
State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China
2
silica aerogels exhibit similar three-dimensional (3D) open porous architectures with interconnected silica nanoparticles [1, 8], which indeed leads to some beneficial properties such as lightweight, large surface area, fire resistance, great heat and sound insulation, etc. However, because of the inefficient structure continuity and loose connection between nanoparticles, silica aerogels usually show poor flexibility and exhibit a rigid and
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