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The automobile and aerospace industries require lightweight and high-strength structural parts. Nylon-based microcellular foamed composites have the characteristics of high strength and the advantages of being lightweight as well as having a low production cost and high product dimensional accuracy. In this work, the glass fiber-reinforced nylon foams were prepared through microcellular injection molding with supercritical fluid as the blowing agent. The tensile strength and weight loss ratio of microcellular foaming composites with various injection rates, temperatures, and volumes were investigated through orthogonal experiments. Moreover, the correlations between dielectric constant and injection volume were also studied. The results showed that the “slow–fast” injection rate, increased temperature, and injection volume were beneficial to improving the tensile strength and strength/weight ratios. Meanwhile, the dielectric constant can be decreased by building the microcellular structure in nylon, which is associated with the weight loss ratio extent closely.

Steam generation through efficient utilization of solar energy is a promising technology in addressing the challenge of global freshwater shortage and water pollution. One of the biggest hurdles for traditional photothermal membranes to function continuously in a high temperature, high salt, and corrosive environment has been attributed to their rapid decline of mechanical properties. In this work, a highly efficient solar-driven interfacial water evaporation system has been developed via a polydopamine/carbon/silicon (PCS) composite membrane supported by a floating insulation foam substrate. A 3.1 fold increase in the water vaporization rate was recorded compared with the pure water system. The 2D-carbon nanolayer on the surface was successfully prepared by carbonizing low-cost linear polyethylene with a glass fiber (GF) membrane as the substrate, and then the carbon membrane was modified with dopamine to control water transport on the carbon coating and within the glass fiber. The PCS membrane has a high efficiency for solar steam generation owing to high optical absorption and has excellent solar thermal conversion capability. The evaporation rate and solar thermal conversion efficiency of the PCS membrane under simulated sunlight irradiation with 1 sun (1 kW·m–2) are 1.39 kg·m–2·h–1 and 80.4% respectively, which are significantly higher compared to GF membrane, carbon/silicon (CS) membrane, and pure water without a photothermal membrane. The water evaporation system retained high efficiency after 20 cycles under simulated sunlight irradiation of 1 sun. This study provides critical insight on the design and fabrication of a highly efficient and durable evaporation system.

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Flexible conductive glass fibers have received significant attention due to their potential applications in electronics, semiconductors, batteries, and automobile and aerospace industries. In this study, highly flexible conductive fibers composed of internal glass fibers and external nanocarbon coatings were fabricated. A conductive nanocarbon-coated glass fiber (NCGF) was prepared by a simple polymer pyrolysis deposition method. The resistance per centimeter of the fiber is approximately 10 5 Ω, and the conductivity of the fiber nanocarbon coating is approximately 10 5 S/ m. The coating is dense and extremely smooth, and the contact interface between the coating and the glass fiber is compact tightly. Meanwhile, the density functional theory (DFT) is used to further analyze the interface bonding between the coating and the glass fiber and the conductive mechanism of the nanocarbon-coated glass fiber.

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