3D Printing Hierarchical Silver Nanowire Aerogel with Highly Compressive Resilience and Tensile Elongation through Tunable Poisson's Ratio

Abstract

Metallic aerogels have attracted intense attention due to their superior properties, such as high electrical conductivity, ultralow densities, and large specific surface area. The preparation of metal aerogels with high efficiency and controllability remains challenge. A 3D freeze assembling printing technique integrated with drop-on-demand inkjet printing and freeze casting are proposed for metallic aerogels preparation. This technique enables tailoring both the macrostructure and microstructure of silver nanowire aerogels (SNWAs) by integrating programmable 3D printing and freeze casting, respectively. The density of the printed SNWAs is controllable, which can be down to 1.3 mg cm . The ultralight SNWAs reach high electrical conductivity of 1.3 S cm and exhibit excellent compressive resilience under 50% compressive strain. Remarkably, the printing methodology also enables tuning aerogel architectures with designed Poisson's ratio (from negative to positive). Moreover, these aerogel architechtures with tunable Poisson's ratio present highly electromechanical stability under high compressive and tensile strain (both strain up to 20% with fully recovery).

A Hierarchical Silver‐Nanowire–Graphene Host Enabling Ultrahigh Rates and Superior Long‐Term Cycling of Lithium‐Metal Composite Anodes

“…In addition, the hierarchical 3D‐AGBN host exhibits a Young's modulus of 1.43 KPa thanks to the physically interconnected graphene scaffold (Figure S16, Supporting Information). This is much superior to those of previously reported AgNW aerogels . The electrochemically stable and mechanically strong porous framework can support large force induced by massive Li deposition and thus maintains a constant electrode dimension during repeated Li plating/stripping .…”

Recent Progress in Biomimetic Additive Manufacturing Technology: From Materials to Functional Structures

“…For example, cells can be assembled into an anatomical structure by 3D printing, after which the nature will take over by fusing the cells into tissues with required biofunctionality as well as improved structural integrity and geometric fidelity, the endothelialized vascular engineered by 3D printing is a good example. Another example is the freeze‐casting‐based inkjet 3D‐printing process for ceramic and composite fabrication of multiscale architectures . This process is inspired by the formation of sea ice where the growth of ice crystals in seawater expels colloids and traps them in a complex porous network.…”

Engineering Self‐Supported Noble Metal Foams Toward Electrocatalysis and Beyond

“…In addition, it can be used to estimate the porosity (φ) of materials from all‐sized pores by the following equation where ρ b represents the density of the bulk material constituting the foam. The bulk material density ρ b (g cm −3 ) is usually known from the reference (19.30 for Au, 10.49 for Ag, 12.45 for Ru, 12.41 for Rh, 12.02 for Pd, 22.61 for Os, 22.65 for Ir, and 21.09 for Pt), while ρ a can be calculated by dividing the NMF mass by its volume (1.3–773 mg cm −3 ) . For NMAs, their extreme fragileness often poses difficulties in obtaining a regular shape, resulting in only a rough estimation of volumes and thus the corresponding densities.…”

“…Among all noble metals, Ag is the first system engineered to NMFs by ice templating, which is pioneered by Yu's group in year 2014 . By unidirectional freezing as‐obtained concentrated Ag NW solutions, Ag foams with aligned macroporous (several micrometers to several tens of micrometers) were obtained (Figure f), displaying low densities of 10–40 mg cm −3 and high electrical conductivity up to 50 S cm −1 .…”

“…Yan et al showed an interesting study by combining the 3D printing technique with freeze casting. An aqueous Ag NW suspension was printed drop by drop on a cold plate (−30 °C), and as‐printed patterns were post‐freezed at −70 °C followed by sublimation.…”