Aerogel fibers have been recognized as the rising star in the fields of thermal insulation and wearable textiles. Yet, the lack of functionalization in aerogel fibers limits their applications. Herein, we report hygroscopic holey graphene aerogel fibers (LiCl@HGAFs) with integrated functionalities of highly efficient moisture capture, heat allocation, and microwave absorption. LiCl@HGAFs realize the water sorption capacity over 4.15 g g−1, due to the high surface area and high water uptake kinetics. Moreover, the sorbent can be regenerated through both photo-thermal and electro-thermal approaches. Along with the water sorption and desorption, LiCl@HGAFs experience an efficient heat transfer process, with a heat storage capacity of 6.93 kJ g−1. The coefficient of performance in the heating and cooling mode can reach 1.72 and 0.70, respectively. Notably, with the entrapped water, LiCl@HGAFs exhibit broad microwave absorption with a bandwidth of 9.69 GHz, good impedance matching, and a high attenuation constant of 585. In light of these findings, the multifunctional LiCl@HGAFs open an avenue for applications in water harvest, heat allocation, and microwave absorption. This strategy also suggests the possibility to functionalize aerogel fibers towards even broader applications.
How to rationally design the microstructure of polymer nanocomposites to significantly improve their electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness (EMI SE) is still a great challenge. Herein, we developed a template method for fabricating 3D porous graphene nanoplatelets/reduced graphene oxide foam/epoxy (GNPs/rGO/EP) nanocomposites, in which 3D rGO foam embedded with GNPs constructs a 3D electrical and thermal conductive network in the EP matrix. The 3D rGO framework resolves the agglomeration problem of GNPs, acts as an efficient bunch of channels for electrical transport and attenuates the entered electromagnetic wave. Benefiting from this 3D nanohybrid framework, the GNPs/rGO/EP nanocomposites containing 0.1 wt% rGO and 20.4 wt% GNPs exhibit an EMI SE value of 51 dB in the X-band range, an almost 292% improvement relative to the rGO/EP nanocomposites (∼13 dB) and 240% enhancement compared with the GNPs/EP nanocomposites without 3D microstructures (∼15 dB) and an excellent thermal conductivity of 1.56 W mK−1 and electrical conductivity up to 179.2 S m−1. This work provides a new strategy for the design of muti-functional epoxy nanocomposites for EMI shielding and efficient heat dissipation.