title: Superelastic and superhydrophobic nanofiber-assembled cellular aerogels for effective separation of oil/water emulsions.
abstract: Many applications proposed for functional nanofibers require their assembly into a monolithic cellular structure. The ability to maintain structural integrity upon large deformation is essential to ensure a macroscopic cellular material that functions reliably. However, it remains a great challenge to achieve high elasticity in three-dimensional (3D) nanofibrous networks. Here, we report a strategy to create fibrous, isotropically bonded elastic reconstructed (FIBER) aerogels with a hierarchical cellular structure and superelasticity by combining electrospun nanofibers and the freeze-shaping technique. Our approach allows the intrinsically lamellar deposited electrospun nanofibers to assemble into elastic bulk aerogels with tunable porous structure and wettability on a large scale. The resulting FIBER aerogels exhibit the integrated properties of ultralow density (<30 mg cm(-3)), rapid recovery from 80% compression strain, superhydrophobic-superoleophilic wettability, and high pore tortuosity. More interestingly, the FIBER aerogels can effectively separate surfactant-stabilized water-in-oil emulsions, solely using gravity, with high flux (maximum of 8140 ± 220 L m(-2) h(-1)) and high separation efficiency, which match well with the requirements for treating the real emulsions. The synthesis of FIBER aerogels also provides a versatile platform for exploring the applications of nanofibers in a self-supporting, structurally adaptive, and 3D macroscopic form.
authors: ‡State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China.
authors: Yang
authors: Y
authors: Si
authors: Qiuxia
authors: Q
authors: Fu
authors: ‡State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China.
authors: Xueqin
authors: X
authors: Wang
authors: Jie
authors: J
authors: Zhu
authors: §Nanomaterials Research Center, Modern Textile Institute, Donghua University, Shanghai 200051, China.
authors: Jianyong
authors: J
authors: Yu
authors: §Nanomaterials Research Center, Modern Textile Institute, Donghua University, Shanghai 200051, China.
authors: Gang
authors: G
authors: Sun
authors: ‡State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China.
authors: Bin
authors: B
authors: Ding
keywords: aerogels; emulsion separation; nanofibers; superelastic; superhydrophobic