Lightweight, Flexible, and Thermal Insulating Carbon/SiO@CNTs Composite Aerogel for High-Efficiency Microwave Absorption.

A complex electromagnetic environment is a formidable challenge in national defense areas. Microwave-absorbing materials are considered as a strategy to tackle this challenge. In this work, lightweight, flexible, and thermal insulating Carbon/SiO@CNTs (CSC) aerogel is successfully prepared coupled with outstanding microwave absorbing performance, through freeze-drying and high-temperature annealing techniques.

Research progress and applications of silica-based aerogels - a bibliometric analysis.

Silica aerogels are three-dimensional porous materials that were initially produced in 1931. During the past nearly 90 years, silica aerogels have been applied extensively in many fields. In order to grasp the progress of silica-based aerogels, we utilize bibliometrics and visualization methods to analyze the research hotspots and the application of this important field.

Insulating and Robust Ceramic Nanorod Aerogels with High-Temperature Resistance over 1400 °C.

Ceramic aerogels, which present a unique combination of low thermal conductivity and excellent high-temperature stability, are attractive for thermal insulation under extreme conditions. However, most ceramic aerogels are constructed by oxide ceramic nanoparticles and thus are usually plagued by their brittleness and structural collapse at elevated temperatures (less than 1000 °C). Despite great progress achieved in this regard recently, it still remains a big challenge to design and fabricate intriguing ceramic aerogels with enhanced mechanical strength and remarkable thermal stability at ultrahigh temperature up to 1400 °C.

High-Capacity Reusable Chitosan Absorbent with a Hydrogel-Coated/Aerogel-Core Structure and Superhydrophilicity under Oil for Water Removal from Oil.

In this work, inspired by the self-cleaning surfaces of fish scales, we prepared a porous chitosan aerogel (CSA) through a simple freeze-drying process. With the three-dimensional interconnected microstructure, the aerogel was highly porous (porosity > 98.16%) and ultralight with a density ranging from 10.

Gecko toe pads inspired in situ switchable superhydrophobic shape memory adhesive film.

Recently, smart adhesive superhydrophobic surfaces have attracted much attention. However, it is still a challenge to obtain a superhydrophobic surface with shape memory adhesive performance. Herein, inspired by the special back-scrolling/unfolding ability of gecko toe pads and corresponding tunable adhesion, we report such a film produced by sticking a layer of superhydrophobic pillar structured polyurethane (s-PU) onto a shape memory polyurethane-cellulose nanofiber (PU-CNF) substrate to mimic the hair-like skin structure and underlying muscle of the gecko toe pads, respectively.

Superhydrophobic Surface With Shape Memory Micro/Nanostructure and Its Application in Rewritable Chip for Droplet Storage.

Recently, superhydrophobic surfaces with tunable wettability have aroused much attention. Noticeably, almost all present smart performances rely on the variation of surface chemistry on static micro/nanostructure, to obtain a surface with dynamically tunable micro/nanostructure, especially that can memorize and keep different micro/nanostructures and related wettabilities, is still a challenge. Herein, by creating micro/nanostructured arrays on shape memory polymer, a superhydrophobic surface that has shape memory ability in changing and recovering its hierarchical structures and related wettabilities was reported.

Self-Restoration of Superhydrophobicity on Shape Memory Polymer Arrays with Both Crushed Microstructure and Damaged Surface Chemistry.

Recently, self-healing superhydrophobic surfaces have become a new research focus due to their recoverable wetting performances and wide applications. However, until now, on almost all reported surfaces, only one factor (surface chemistry or microstructure) can be restored. In this paper, a new superhydrophobic surface with self-healing ability in both crushed microstructure and damaged surface chemistry is prepared by creating lotus-leaves-like microstructure on the epoxy shape memory polymer (SMP).

The design of underwater superoleophobic Ni/NiO microstructures with tunable oil adhesion.

Controlling oil adhesion in water is a fundamental issue in many practical applications for surfaces. Currently, almost all studies on underwater oil adhesion control are concentrated on regulating surface chemistry on polymer surfaces, and structure-dependent underwater oil adhesion is still rare, especially on inorganic materials. Herein, we report a series of underwater superoleophobic Ni/NiO surfaces with controlled oil adhesions by combining electro-deposition and heating techniques.

Fabrication of hierarchical gecko-inspired microarrays using a three-dimensional porous nickel oxide template.

In the current work, a three dimensional porous nickel based (p-Ni/NiO) template processed by a simple electrodeposition method was used to fabricate the hierarchical gecko-inspired microarrays. The microstructure of p-Ni/NiO templates is controlled and optimized by deposition and post-treatment parameters. Bio-inspired polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microarrays with different morphologies were fabricated by casting and showed excellent adhesion strength and superhydrophobicity.

Bio-inspired design of hierarchical PDMS microstructures with tunable adhesive superhydrophobicity.

In this paper, bio-inspired PDMS films with different hierarchical microstructures were designed and tunable adhesive super-hydrophobicity was achieved on these films. The adhesive forces between a water droplet and the PDMS film can be adjusted from extremely low (about 8.3 μN) to very high (about 57 μN), and the tunable effect can be ascribed to different wetting states for the water droplets that result from different microstructures on the films.