title: Ultralight nanofibre-assembled cellular aerogels with superelasticity and multifunctionality.
abstract: 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 >0.12 mg cm(-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.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Si
authors.affiliation: 1] Key Laboratory of Textile Science &Technology, Ministry of Education, College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China [2] Nanomaterials Research Center, Modern Textile Institute, Donghua University, Shanghai 200051, China.
authors.forename: Jianyong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Textile Science &Technology, Ministry of Education, College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China.
authors.forename: Xiaomin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Textile Science &Technology, Ministry of Education, College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China.
authors.forename: Jianlong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ge
authors.affiliation: 1] State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China [2] Key Laboratory of Textile Science &Technology, Ministry of Education, College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China.
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ding