Three-dimensional nanofibrous aerogels (NFAs) that are both highly compressible and resilient would have broad technological implications for areas ranging from electrical devices and bioengineering to damping materials; however, creating such NFAs has proven extremely challenging. Here we report a novel strategy to create fibrous, isotropically bonded elastic reconstructed (FIBER) NFAs with a hierarchical cellular structure and superelasticity by combining electrospun nanofibres and the fibrous freeze-shaping technique. Our approach causes the intrinsically lamellar deposited electrospun nanofibres to assemble into elastic bulk aerogels with tunable densities and desirable shapes on a large scale. The resulting FIBER NFAs exhibit densities of 40.12 mg cm À 3 , rapid recovery from deformation, efficient energy absorption and multifunctionality in terms of the combination of thermal insulation, sound absorption, emulsion separation and elasticity-responsive electric conduction. The successful synthesis of such fascinating materials may provide new insights into the design and development of multifunctional NFAs for various applications.

Daylight-driven antimicrobial nanomaterials serve as a novel barrier for transmission of emerging infectious diseases.

The study of wearable devices has become a popular research topic recently, where high-sensitivity, noise proof sensing mechanisms with long-term wearability play critical roles in a real-world implementation, while the existing mechanical sensing technologies (i.e., resistive, capacitive, or piezoelectric) have yet offered a satisfactory solution to address them all. Here, we successfully introduced a flexible supercapacitive sensing modality to all-fabric materials for wearable pressure and force sensing using an elastic ionic-electronic interface. Notably, an electrospun ionic fabric utilizing nanofibrous structures offers an extraordinarily high pressure-to-capacitance sensitivity (114 nF kPa ), which is at least 1000 times higher than any existing capacitive sensors and one order of magnitude higher than the previously reported ionic devices, with a pressure resolution of 2.4 Pa, achieving high levels of noise immunity and signal stability for wearable applications. In addition, its fabrication process is fully compatible with existing industrial manufacturing and can lead to cost-effective production for its utility in emerging wearable uses in a foreseeable future.

Creating an efficient, cost-effective method that can provide simple, practical and high-throughput separation of oil-water mixtures has proved extremely challenging. This work responds to these challenges by designing, fabricating and evaluating a novel fluorinated polybenzoxazine (F-PBZ) modified nanofibrous membrane optimized to achieve gravity driven oil-water separation. The membrane design is then realized by a facile combination of electrospun poly(m-phenylene isophthalamide) (PMIA) nanofibers and an in situ polymerized F-PBZ functional layer incorporating SiO2 nanoparticles (SiO2 NPs). By employing the F-PBZ/SiO2 NP modification, the pristine hydrophilic PMIA nanofibrous membranes are endowed with promising superhydrophobicity with a water contact angle of 161° and superoleophilicity with an oil contact angle of 0°. This new membrane shows high thermal stability (350 °C) and good repellency to hot water (80 °C), and achieves an excellent mechanical strength of 40.8 MPa. Furthermore, the as-prepared membranes exhibited fast and efficient separation of oil-water mixtures by a solely gravity driven process, which makes them good candidates for industrial oil-polluted water treatments and oil spill cleanup, and also provided new insights into the design and development of functional nanofibrous membranes through F-PBZ modification.

Hydrogels that are both highly conductive and mechanically robust have demonstrated great potential in various applications ranging from healthcare to soft robotics; however, the creation of such materials remains an enormous challenge. This study presents an in situ synthesis strategy for developing bioinspired chemically integrated silica-nanofiber-reinforced hydrogels (SFRHs) with robust mechanical and electronic performance. The strategy is to synthesize soft hydrogel matrices from acrylamide monomers in the presence of well-dispersed silica nanofibers and vinyl silane, which generates homogenous SFRHs with innovative interfacial chemical bonds. The resultant SFRHs exhibit excellent mechanical properties including high mechanical strength of 0.3 MPa at a fracture strain of 1400%, high Young's modulus of 0.11 MPa (comparable to human skin), and superelasticity over 1000 tensile cycles without plastic deformation, while maintaining high transmittance (≥83%). In parallel, the SFRHs show enhanced ionic conductivity (3.93 S m −1 ) and can monitor multiple stimuli (stretching, compressing, and bending) with high sensitivity (gauge factor of 2.67) and ultra-durability (10 000 cycles). This work may shed light on the design and development of tough and stretchable hydrogels for various applications.

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Real-life wearable electronics with long-term stable sensing performance are of significant practical interest to public. Wearable pressure sensors with washable, comfortable, breathable, and stable sensing ability are a key requirement to meet the desire. However, effects of ubiquitous ambient moisture and intrinsic defects of current capacitive sensing materials are two factors leading to unstable sensing performance of current pressure sensors. Existing ionic liquid-based materials (i.e., ionic hydrogel, ionic film, or ionic/ elastomers composite) have been used for efficient capacitive pressure sensing but are highly sensitive and especially affected by moisture. In this work, we introduce a washable capacitive pressure-sensing textile based on the use of a hydrophobic poly(ionic liquid) nanofibrous membrane (PILNM) with good mechanical properties and satisfactory moisture proof sensing performance. The PILNM membranes possessing rich ions and microporous structures are novel ideal polymeric dielectric materials for amplification of signals with negligible stimulations. Moreover, the PILNMs exhibit very high stable sensing signals under moisture interference (up to 70% relative humidity) and repeated washings (more than 10 washings), especially suitable for wearable electronics. Notably, the PILNM-based wearable pressure-sensing textiles offer high sensitivity for low pressure and bent chord length changes with a low-pressure detection limit even under harsh deformations. Owing to the superior performance, the PILNM-based wearable pressure-sensing textiles are comfortable to wear and suitable for monitoring different human motions and pulse vibrations at various body positions. Meanwhile, the assembled multiple wearable pressure-sensing array can spatially map the contact area of the pressure stimuli and synchronously reflect finger movements.