Superelastic Multifunctional Aminosilane-Crosslinked Graphene Aerogels for High Thermal Insulation, Three-Component Separation, and Strain/Pressure-Sensing Arrays

Abstract

Aerogels have attracted great interest for their unique properties, but their mechanical brittleness and poor functionality highly limit their practical applications. Herein, we report unprecedented superelastic multifunctional aminosilane-crosslinked reduced graphene oxide (AC–rGO) aerogels that are prepared via a facile and scalable strategy involving simultaneous crosslinking and reducing of graphene oxide nanosheets with different kinds of aminosilanes via C–N coupling and hydrolytic polycondensation reactions. It is found that 3-aminopropyl­(diethoxy)­methylsilane (APDEMS) is the better choice to enhance hydrophobicity, elasticity, and other properties of the resulting aerogels compared with (3-aminopropyl)­triethoxysilane. One APDEMS molecule plays three roles as a crosslinker, a reductant, and a hydrophobizing agent. An outstanding combination of high surface area, ultralow density, superhydrophobicity, supercompressibility, superelasticity, low thermal conductivity, ultrahigh absorption capacity for organic liquids, efficient three-component separation, and strain/pressure sensing has been achieved in a single APDEMS-crosslinked rGO aerogel for the first time. In addition, a flexible, highly sensitive, and moisture-resistant AC–rGO aerogel-based strain/pressure-sensing array for the effective detection of strain (0–80%)/pressure (10 Pa to 10 kPa) distributions and object shapes has been demonstrated.

Nacre-Mimetic, Mechanically Flexible, and Electrically Conductive Silk Fibroin-MXene Composite Foams as Piezoresistive Pressure Sensors

“…The weight gains of X-SF-MXene0.01-GO (ρ b = 0.06 g cm –3 ), X-SF-MXene0.05-GO (ρ b = 0.025 g cm –3 ), and X-SF-MXene0.33-GO (ρ b = 0.029 g cm –3 ) after absorbing chloroform, n -hexane, and mineral oil were in the ranges of 20–60, 39–120, and 24–58 g g –1 , respectively. The obtained absorption capacities of the composites were in the absorption range of previously reported aerogels in the literature. ,, In addition, X-SF-MXene0.05-GO could effectively separate dye, oil, and water (such as n- hexane, Oil-red O, and water) from the three-component oil–dye–water mixtures in a single absorption step (Figure d).…”

“…The obtained absorption capacities of the composites were in the absorption range of previously reported aerogels in the literature. 13,15,31 In addition, X-SF-MXene0.05-GO could effectively separate dye, oil, and water (such as nhexane, Oil-red O, and water) from the three-component oil− dye−water mixtures in a single absorption step (Figure 6d).…”

“…Despite the impressive development of optimized building units with porous architectures in pressure sensing, most of the structures reported so far possess isotropic or randomly oriented cross-linked cellular networks due to the difficulty in controlling the pore shape and morphology. , Recently, we developed anisotropic silica-SF biopolymer aerogels , with a microhoneycomb-like microstructure and anisotropic mechanical behavior through unidirectional freeze-casting of the as-prepared silica-SF hydrogels followed by the supercritical drying approach. In this regard, we demonstrated that by carefully controlling the microstructure and pore morphology with freeze-casting parameters, the aerogels’ final mechanical properties could be significantly controlled (maximum compression strength ∼20 MPa with elasticity up to 80% of the strain) …”

1D/2D Nanomaterials Synergistic, Compressible, and Response Rapidly 3D Graphene Aerogel for Piezoresistive Sensor

“…introduced an aminosilane to cross‐link reduced GO (rGO) to prepare superelastic aerogels which had a detection strain range of 0–80%. [ 34 ] Huang et al. grew polyaniline (PANI) nanoarrays on a graphene framework to improve the conductivity of graphene aerogels to shorten the sensing response time to 50 ms. [ 35 ] Furthermore, the introduction of different nanomaterials has been shown to synergistically improve the sensing and mechanical performances of graphene aerogels.…”

Radiation-initiated high strength chitosan/lithium sulfonate double network hydrogel/aerogel with porosity and stability for efficient CO2 capture

“…25 As a kind of porous material, aerogels have been widely investigated in the elds of thermal insulation, catalysis and adsorption in recent years due to their excellent performance such as low volume density, high porosity, large specic surface area and low thermal conductivity. [26][27][28][29] Chitosan is a natural biopolymer prepared by deacetylation of chitin. 30 Chitosan has excellent characteristics including biocompatibility, biodegradability and low immunogenicity, which make it an ideal candidate for the construction of microcapsules, lms, hydrogels and so on.…”