Multifunctional electronic textiles hold great potential applications in the wearable electronics field. However, it remains challenging to seamlessly integrate the multiple functions on the textile substrates without sacrificing their intrinsic properties. Herein, we report a novel and facile vapor phase polymerization (VPP) and spray-coating strategy towards the construction of a laminated film containing a PEDOT film and Ti3C2Tx MXene sheets on the fiber surface. The fabricated PEDOT/MXene decorated cotton fabrics are integrated with excellent electrochemical performance, joule heating performance, good electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding, and strain sensing performance. The resultant multifunctional textiles have a low sheet resistance of 3.6 Ω sq−1, and the assembled all-solid-state fabric supercapacitors exhibit an ultrahigh specific capacitance of 1000.2 mF cm−2, which exceeds the state-of-the-art MXene-based fabric supercapacitors. In addition, the PEDOT/MXene modified fabrics exhibit an exceptional joule heating performance of 193.1 °C at the applied voltage of 12 V, high EMI shielding effectiveness of 36.62 dB, and high sensitivity as strain sensors for human motion detection. This work provides a novel strategy for the structure design of multifunctional textiles and will lay the foundation for the development of multifunctional wearable electronics.
Aerogel fiber, with the characteristics of ultra-low density, ultra-high porosity, and high specific surface area, is the most potential candidate for manufacturing wearable thermal insulation material. However, aerogel fibers generally show weak mechanical properties and complex preparation processes. Herein, through firstly preparing a cellulose acetate/polyacrylic acid (CA/PAA) hollow fiber using coaxial wet-spinning followed by injecting the silk fibroin (SF) solution into the hollow fiber, the CA/PAA-wrapped SF aerogel fibers toward textile thermal insulation were successfully constructed after freeze-drying. The sheath (CA/PAA hollow fiber) possesses a multiscale porous structure, including micropores (11.37 ± 4.01 μm), sub-micron pores (217.47 ± 46.16 nm), as well as nanopores on the inner (44.00 ± 21.65 nm) and outer (36.43 ± 17.55 nm) surfaces, which is crucial to the formation of a SF aerogel core. Furthermore, the porous CA/PAA-wrapped SF aerogel fibers have many advantages, such as low density (0.21 g/cm3), high porosity (86%), high strength at break (2.6 ± 0.4 MPa), as well as potential continuous and large-scale production. The delicate structure of multiscale porous sheath and ultra-low-density SF aerogel core synergistically inhibit air circulation and limit convective heat transfer. Meanwhile, the high porosity of aerogel fibers weakens heat transfer and the SF aerogel cellular walls prevent infrared radiation. The results show that the mat composed of these aerogel fibers exhibits excellent thermal insulating properties with a wide working temperature from −20 to 100 °C. Therefore, this SF-based aerogel fiber can be considered as a practical option for high performance thermal insulation.
10 August 2022 in Journal of Colloid and Interface Science
Two different silk fibroin samples were obtained by the Na2CO3 and urea degumming methods of silk fibers in the same fiber dissolution system, respectively. The molecular weight and viscosity of the fibroin samples were analyzed by the methods of SDS-PAGE, rheological, and etc. Then, different silk fibroin membranes (SFMs) and blank microspheres were prepared, and the effects of degumming methods on the silk fibroin were studied via analyzing the differences of SFMs and blank microspheres of the two samples. The experimental results showed that the viscosity of fibroin solution was positively correlated with its molecular weight. The fibroin prepared by the Na2CO3 degumming was lower than the one prepared by the urea degumming in the viscosity of the fibroin solution under the same mass concentration. Degumming with Na2CO3 exhibited the obvious effects on the thermal stability and mechanical properties of SFM, tensile strength decreased almost 10% and breaking elongation reduced more than 50%. Blank microspheres prepared from silk fibroin degummed with the different methods showed different particle sizes and its distribution. The microspheres prepared from silk fibroin degummed with the Na2CO3 had the smaller particle sizes and more concentrated distribution compared with those with the urea.