Aerogels have many attractive properties but are usually costly and mechanically brittle, which always limit their practical applications. While many efforts have been made to reinforce the aerogels, most of the reinforcement efforts sacrifice the transparency or superinsulating properties. Here we report superflexible polyvinylpolymethylsiloxane, (CHCH(Si(CH)O)), aerogels that are facilely prepared from a single precursor vinylmethyldimethoxysilane or vinylmethyldiethoxysilane without organic cross-linkers. The method is based on consecutive processes involving radical polymerization and hydrolytic polycondensation, followed by ultralow-cost, highly scalable, ambient-pressure drying directly from alcohol as a drying medium without any modification or additional solvent exchange. The resulting aerogels and xerogels show a homogeneous, tunable, highly porous, doubly cross-linked nanostructure with the elastic polymethylsiloxane network cross-linked with flexible hydrocarbon chains. An outstanding combination of ultralow cost, high scalability, uniform pore size, high surface area, high transparency, high hydrophobicity, excellent machinability, superflexibility in compression, superflexibility in bending, and superinsulating properties has been achieved in a single aerogel or xerogel. This study represents a significant progress of porous materials and makes the practical applications of transparent flexible aerogel-based superinsulators realistic.

Polymethylsilsesquioxane-cellulose nanofiber (PMSQ-CNF) composite aerogels have been prepared through sol-gel in a solvent containing a small amount of CNFs as suspension. Since these composite aerogels do not show excessive aggregation of PMSQ and CNF, the original PMSQ networks are not disturbed. Composite aerogels with low density (0.020 g cm(-3) at lowest), low thermal conductivity (15 mW m(-1) K(-1)), visible light translucency, bending flexibility, and superhydrophobicity thus have been successfully obtained. In particular, the lowest density and bending flexibility have been achieved with the aid of the physical supporting effect of CNFs, and the lowest thermal conductivity is comparable with the original PMSQ aerogels and standard silica aerogels. The PMSQ-CNF composite aerogels would be a candidate to practical high-performance thermal insulating materials.

ABSTRACT:A facile yet versatile approach to transparent, highly flexible, machinable, superinsulating organic-inorganic hybrid aerogels and xerogels is presented. This method involves radical polymerization of a single alkenylalkoxysilane to obtain polyalkenylalkoxysilane, and subsequent hydrolytic polycondensation to afford a homogeneous, doubly cross-linked nanostructure consisting of polysiloxanes and hydrocarbon polymer units.Here we demonstrate that novel aerogels based on polyvinylpolysilsesquioxane (PVPSQ),

Aerogels are porous materials but show poor mechanical properties and limited functionality, which significantly restrict their practical applications. Preparation of highly bendable and processable aerogels with multifunctionality remains a challenge. Herein we report unprecedented superflexible aerogels based on polyvinylpolydimethylsiloxane (PVPDMS) networks, PVPDMS/polyvinylpolymethylsiloxane (PVPMS) copolymer networks, and PVPDMS/PVPMS/graphene nanocomposites by a facile radical polymerization/hydrolytic polycondensation strategy and ambient pressure drying or freeze drying. The aerogels have a doubly cross-linked organic-inorganic network structure consisting of flexible polydimethylsiloxanes and hydrocarbon chains with tunable cross-linking density, tunable pore size and bulk density. They have a high hydrophobicity and superflexibility and combine selective absorption, efficient separation of oil and water, thermal superinsulation, and strain sensing.