Transparent, robust, and machinable hybrid silica aerogel with a “rigid-flexible” combined structure for thermal insulation, oil/water separation, and self-cleaning

SiO2 Nanostructure-Based Aerogels with High Strength and Deformability for Thermal Insulation

“…At a fracture strain of 82.63%, the maximum compression stress of H2F-SA is as high as 26.40 MPa (Figure b). In terms of the compression specific strength and fracture strain, H2F-SA is superior to other aerogels with excellent mechanical properties (Figure c), ,,− emphasizing its excellent mechanical resistance to compression. Also, with this special structure, H2F-SA also achieves the coexistence of high strength and excellent processability.…”

High mechanically enhanced and degradable polybenzoxazine/polyhexahydrotriazine IPN aerogels by atmospheric drying

“…Among these methods, physical absorption has advantages of low cost and high efficiency, making it more attractive for oil spill cleanup [9][10][11] . Silica aerogels are by far the most widely used commercial aerogels, known for their high porosity and high absorption capacity, making them hopeful alternatives for oil/water separation applications [12][13][14][15] . Adsorption capacity of oil/water separation can reach 12.5 g/g and 8.7 g/g for silica aerogels modified with TMCS and MTMS, respectively [12] .…”

“…[9][10][11] Silica aerogels have been by far the most widely used commercial aerogels, known for their high porosity and high absorption capacity, making them hopeful alternatives for oil/water separation applications. [12][13][14][15] Adsorption capacity of oil/water separation can reach 12.5 g g À1 and 8.7 g g À1 for silica aerogels modified with TMCS and MTMS, respectively. 12 Excellent adsorption capacity of 8.7-15.4 g g À1 has been obtained for ternary flexible silica aerogels modified with dimethyldiethoxysilane (DEDMS), methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) or tetraethoxysilane (TEOS).…”

Highly Deformable High-Strength SiO2 Aerogel Designed with an Alternating Structure of Hard Cores and Flexible Chains for Thermal Insulation

“…Due to the presence of a special 3-dimensional nanoconnected porous network structure, the SiO 2 aerogel can effectively block the heat conduction, heat convection, and heat radiation, breaking the theoretical thermal insulation limit of traditional thermal insulation materials, and can produce a thermal conductivity comparable to or even lower than air. , However, this ultrahigh porosity skeleton construction method also leads to a series of limitations of the SiO 2 aerogel, such as low strength, high brittleness, and poor processability, , and the scope of its application alone is very limited. , At present, the SiO 2 aerogel is often used as a dopant for other thermal insulation materials to make composite products, such as SiO 2 aerogel fiber felt, SiO 2 aerogel heat insulation board, etc., but these application modes cannot play the thermal insulation effect of the SiO 2 aerogel, and it is difficult to reflect its real application value. , …”

“…Until finally, the HF-SiO 2 aerogel is damaged at 83.32% compression strain, corresponding to an maximum compression stress of 22.15 MPa, indicating that it can withstand a maximum weight of more than 915240 times its own weight before being broken, which is almost impossible to achieve with other types of aerogels. In terms of both compression strength and fracture strain, other reported high-strength aerogels have difficulty in outperforming the HF-SiO 2 aerogel, even with the support of greater density (0.23–0.5 g/cm 3 ) (Figure d), ,− which further demonstrates the design advantages and application potential of hard cores and flexible chains alternately constructing the aerogel skeleton structure. Even so, the high compression strength does not affect the processability of the HF-SiO 2 aerogel, which can be easily separated neatly with a small knife, mainly due to the high local pressure generated by the two-dimensional force during cutting, which effectively breaks the flexible multilinked molecular chains (Figure S4).…”