Aerogel fibers are an emerging class of ultralightweight materials, which, compared to conventional bulk monolithic and aerogel films, provide better flexibility and extensibility. Despite the recent advancements in this field, due to their highly porous structure, their mechanical properties can be deteriorated. Inspired by the textile industry, we report the development of aerogel fiber bundles with twisted structures as a promising strategy to enhance the mechanical performance and practicality of aerogel fibers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPolyimide (PI) aerogels are promising in various fields of application, ranging from thermal insulators to aerospace. However, they are typically in the form of a bulk monolith, which suffers from a lack of conformability and drapability. Moreover, their electrical conductivity is limited, and they mainly display an insulative behavior.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWith the rapid advancements in technology and growing aerospace applications, there is a need for effective low-weight and thermally insulating materials. Aerogels are known for their ultra-lightweight and they are highly porous materials with nanopores in a range of 2 to 50 nm with very low thermal conductivity values. However, due to hygroscopic nature and brittleness, aerogels are not used commercially and in daily life.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study presents a novel type of wet electrode material for electrophysiological monitoring based on a conductive aerogel film. The electrode material incorporates cellulose nanocrystal and fiber as a biocompatible polymer and multi-walled carbon nanotube as a conductive filler. The fabricated electrode is fully characterized to explore the chemical, mechanical, electrical, and water absorption properties.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAerogels have presented a very high potential to be utilized as airborne nanoparticles' filtration media due to their nanoscale pore size and extremely high porosity. The filtering performance of aerogels, such as air permeability and filtration efficiency, is highly related to the configuration of aerogels' nanostructure assembly. However, as aerogel morphology is formed with respect to the intermolecular forces during the gelation stage, tailoring the aerogel nanostructure assembly is still a challenge.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper presents a novel aerogel-based Triboelectric Nanogenerator (TENG) which shows a superior performance for energy harvesting and sensing applications. Polyimide-based aerogel film with varying open-cell content level is developed to be used as the main contact material for the TENG. The fabricated aerogel film is fully characterized to reveal the chemical and mechanical properties of the developed material.
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