TY - JOUR
T1 - Nacre-Mimetic, Mechanically Flexible, and Electrically Conductive Silk Fibroin-MXene Composite Foams as Piezoresistive Pressure Sensors
AU - Bandar Abadi, Mohsen
AU - Weissing, Rene
AU - Wilhelm, Michael
AU - Demidov, Yan
AU - Auer, Jaqueline
AU - Ghazanfari, Samaneh
AU - Anasori, Babak
AU - Mathur, Sanjay
AU - Maleki, Hajar
N1 - Funding Information:
H.M. would like to acknowledge the support of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Association of the Chemical Industry, the Chemical Industry Fund for the financial support. H.M. would also like to thank Prof. Meerholz and Ruth Bruker for SEM analysis support, Prof. Jahn for Raman spectrometer usage, and Tim Ludwig for kindly providing the GO powder. The micro-CT investigation was supported by the project “Multimodal and in situ characterization of inhomogeneous materials” (MiCi) funded by the federal government of Upper Austria and the European Regional Development Fund (EFRE) in the framework of the EU-Program (no. IWB2020).
Funding Information:
H.M. would like to acknowledge the support of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Association of the Chemical Industry, the Chemical Industry Fund for the financial support. H.M. would also like to thank Prof. Meerholz and Ruth Bruker for SEM analysis support, Prof. Jahn for Raman spectrometer usage, and Tim Ludwig for kindly providing the GO powder. The micro-CT investigation was supported by the project “Multimodal and characterization of inhomogeneous materials” (MiCi) funded by the federal government of Upper Austria and the European Regional Development Fund (EFRE) in the framework of the EU-Program (no. IWB2020).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2021/7/28
Y1 - 2021/7/28
N2 - The hierarchical nacre-like three-dimensional (3D) assembly of porous and lightweight materials is in high demand for applications such as sensors, flexible energy storage and harvesting devices, electromagnetic interference shielding, and biomedical applications. However, designing such a biomimetic hierarchical architecture is highly challenging due to the lack of experimental approaches to achieve the necessary control over the materials' microstructure on the multilength scale. Aerogels and foam-based materials have recently been developed as attractive candidates for pressure-sensing applications. However, despite recent progress, the bottleneck for these materials to achieve electrical conductivity combined with high mechanical flexibility and fast strain recovery remains. In this study, for the first time, inspired by the multiscale architecture of nacre, we fabricated a series of ultralightweight, flexible, electrically conductive, and relatively high-strength composite foams through hybridizing the cross-linked silk fibroin (SF) biopolymer, extracted from Bombyx mori silkworm cocoon, reinforced with two-dimensional graphene oxide (GO) and Ti3C2 MXene nanosheets. Nacre is a naturally porous material with a lightweight, mechanically robust network structure, thanks to its 3D interconnected lamella-bridge micromorphology. Inspired by this material, we assemble a cross-linked SF fibrous solution with MXene and GO nanosheets into nacre-like architecture using a bidirectional freeze-casting technique. Subsequent freeze-drying and gas-phase hydrophobization resulted in composite foams with 3D hierarchical porous architectures with a unique combination of mechanical resilience, electrical conductance, and ultra-lightness. The developed composite presented excellent performances as piezoresistive pressure-sensing devices and sorbents for oil/water separation, which indicated great potential in mechanically switchable electronics.
AB - The hierarchical nacre-like three-dimensional (3D) assembly of porous and lightweight materials is in high demand for applications such as sensors, flexible energy storage and harvesting devices, electromagnetic interference shielding, and biomedical applications. However, designing such a biomimetic hierarchical architecture is highly challenging due to the lack of experimental approaches to achieve the necessary control over the materials' microstructure on the multilength scale. Aerogels and foam-based materials have recently been developed as attractive candidates for pressure-sensing applications. However, despite recent progress, the bottleneck for these materials to achieve electrical conductivity combined with high mechanical flexibility and fast strain recovery remains. In this study, for the first time, inspired by the multiscale architecture of nacre, we fabricated a series of ultralightweight, flexible, electrically conductive, and relatively high-strength composite foams through hybridizing the cross-linked silk fibroin (SF) biopolymer, extracted from Bombyx mori silkworm cocoon, reinforced with two-dimensional graphene oxide (GO) and Ti3C2 MXene nanosheets. Nacre is a naturally porous material with a lightweight, mechanically robust network structure, thanks to its 3D interconnected lamella-bridge micromorphology. Inspired by this material, we assemble a cross-linked SF fibrous solution with MXene and GO nanosheets into nacre-like architecture using a bidirectional freeze-casting technique. Subsequent freeze-drying and gas-phase hydrophobization resulted in composite foams with 3D hierarchical porous architectures with a unique combination of mechanical resilience, electrical conductance, and ultra-lightness. The developed composite presented excellent performances as piezoresistive pressure-sensing devices and sorbents for oil/water separation, which indicated great potential in mechanically switchable electronics.
KW - CARBON AEROGEL
KW - LIGHTWEIGHT
KW - MXene
KW - SURFACE
KW - THERMAL INSULATION
KW - bio-inspired foams
KW - hybrid
KW - nacre
KW - piezoresistive wearable pressure sensor
KW - silk fibroin
U2 - 10.1021/acsami.1c09675
DO - 10.1021/acsami.1c09675
M3 - Article
C2 - 34259501
SN - 1944-8244
VL - 13
SP - 34996
EP - 35007
JO - ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
JF - ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
IS - 29
ER -