Aerogels are light-weight supplies with in depth microscale pores, which might be utilized in thermal insulation, vitality units, aerospace constructions, in addition to rising applied sciences of versatile electronics. Nonetheless, conventional aerogels primarily based on ceramics are usually brittle, which limits their efficiency in load-bearing constructions. Attributable to restrictions posed by their constructing blocks, not too long ago developed courses of polymeric aerogels can solely obtain excessive mechanical power by sacrificing their structural porosity or light-weight traits.
A analysis workforce led by Dr. Lizhi Xu and Dr. Yuan Lin from the Division of Mechanical Engineering of the School of Engineering of the College of Hong Kong (HKU), has developed a brand new sort of polymer aerogel supplies with huge applicational values for numerous practical units.
On this research, now printed in Nature Communications, a brand new sort of aerogel was efficiently created utilizing a self-assembled nanofiber community involving aramids, or Kevlar, a polymer materials utilized in bullet-proof vests and helmets. As a substitute of utilizing millimeter-scale Kevlar fibers, the analysis workforce used a solution-processing technique to disperse the aramids into nanoscale fibrils.
The interactions between the nanofibers and polyvinyl alcohol, one other delicate and “gluey” polymer, generated a 3D fibrillar community with excessive nodal connectivity and powerful bonding between the nanofibers. “It is like a microscopic 3D truss community, and we managed to weld the trusses firmly collectively, leading to a really sturdy and hard materials that may stand up to in depth mechanical hundreds, outperforming different aerogel supplies,” mentioned Dr. Xu.
The workforce has additionally used theoretical simulations to elucidate the excellent mechanical efficiency of the developed aerogels. “We constructed a wide range of 3D community fashions in pc, which captured the important traits of nanofibrillar aerogels,” mentioned Dr. Lin, who led the theoretical simulations of the analysis.
“The nodal mechanics of fibrillar networks are important to their total mechanical behaviors. Our simulations revealed that the nodal connectivity and the bonding power between the fibers influenced the mechanical power of the community by many orders of magnitudes even with the identical strong content material,” mentioned Dr. Lin.
“The outcomes are very thrilling. We not solely developed a brand new sort of polymer aerogels with wonderful mechanical properties but additionally offered insights for the design of varied nanofibrous supplies,” mentioned Dr. Xu, including, “the straightforward fabrication processes for these aerogels additionally permit them for use in varied practical units, comparable to wearable electronics, thermal stealth, filtration membranes, and different methods,”
Onerous carbon nanofiber aerogel turns into superelastic
Huimin He et al, Ultrastrong and multifunctional aerogels with hyperconnective community of composite polymeric nanofibers, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-31957-2
The College of Hong Kong
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Researchers develop ultra-strong aerogels with supplies utilized in bullet-proof vests (2022, September 29)
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