Ultralight ceramic aerogels with the property combination of recoverable compressibility and excellent high-temperature stability are attractive for use in harsh environments. However, conventional ceramic aerogels are usually constructed by oxide ceramic nanoparticles, and their practical applications have always been limited by the brittle nature of ceramics and volume shrinkage at high temperature. Silicon carbide (SiC) nanowire offers the integrated properties of elasticity and flexibility of one-dimensional (1D) nanomaterials and superior high-temperature thermal and chemical stability of SiC ceramics, which makes it a promising building block for compressible ceramic nanowire aerogels (NWAs). Here, we report the fabrication and properties of a highly porous three-dimensional (3D) SiC NWA assembled by a large number of interweaving 3C-SiC nanowires of 20-50 nm diameter and tens to hundreds of micrometers in length. The SiC NWA possesses ultralow density (∼5 mg cm), excellent mechanical properties of large recoverable compression strain (>70%) and fatigue resistance, refractory property, oxidation and high-temperature resistance, and thermal insulating property (0.026 W m K at room temperature in N). When used as absorbents, the SiC NWAs exhibit an adsorption selectivity of low-viscosity organic solvents with high absorption capacity (130-237 g g). The successful fabrication of such an attractive material may provide promising perspectives to the design and fabrication of other compressible and multifunctional ceramic NWAs.

Resilient ceramic aerogels exhibit great potential for applications in harsh environments owing to their unique combination of ultrahigh porosity, lightweight, reversible compressibility, and good thermal and chemical stabilities. However, their applications are severely restricted by the limited size and low yield due to their complicated and time-consuming synthetic procedures. Herein, we developed an efficient method for large-scale production of resilient SiC nanowire aerogels (SiC NWAGs) with tunable densities and desired shapes. The as-synthesized SiC NWAGs displayed excellent high-temperature stability (the maximum working temperature in Ar and air can reach to 1400 and 1000 °C, respectively), outstanding flame-erosion resistance and low thermal conductivity (25 mW m–1 K–1). The easy fabrication of such ceramic aerogel on a large scale will pave the way for the widespread applications of ceramic aerogels.

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Tungsten disulfide (WS2) as one of transition metal dichalcogenides exhibits excellent catalytic activity. However, its catalytic performances in aqueous phase reactions are limited by its hydrophobicity. Here, the natural hydrophilic two-dimensional clay was used to enhance the dispersibility of WS2 in aqueous phase. WS2/montmorillonite (WS2/MMT) composite nanosheets were prepared via hydrothermal synthesis of WS2 on the surface of montmorillonite from WCl6 and CH3CSNH2. The microstructure and morphology show that WS2 nanosheets are assembled parallelly on the montmorillonite with the interface interaction. Through the support of montmorillonite, WS2/MMT possesses higher photocatalytic ability for aqueous phase reactions than WS2, which could be due to the synergistic effect of higher adsorption property, higher hydrophilicity, dispersibility and more catalytic reaction site. The strategy could provide new ideas for obtaining novel hydrophilic photocatalyst with excellent performance.