Journal article
Nature‐Inspired Functional Aerogel Fibers with Engineerable Core–Shell Morphology
Advanced materials technologies, Forthcoming
23 Sep 2025
Abstract
Aerogels offer exceptional multifunctionality but are often hampered by mechanical fragility, structural brittleness, and complex processing. Inspired by the core–shell architecture of the Canadian goose feather rachis, a scalable coaxial wet‐spinning approach is reported to produce wearable aerogel fibers. Polyimide (PI) shells encapsulating conductive Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene cores are fabricated via a tailored polyamic acid (PAA) solvent/non‐solvent exchange phase‐inversion process. Detailed mechanistic studies show that the ethanol–water ratio in the coagulation bath critically governs phase‐inversion kinetics, structural integrity, and hierarchical porosity. Under optimized conditions, the resulting aerogel fibers exhibit absorption‐dominant EMI shielding (54.9 dB), high mechanical robustness (tensile strength up to 20.4 MPa), and record‐level thermal insulation (thermal conductivity of 21.7 ± 1.5 mW m −1 K −1 ). This innovative chemical strategy provides a practical and scalable route to lightweight, durable, and multifunctional aerogel fibers for wearable electronics, thermal management, and EMI shielding applications.
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Details
- Title
- Nature‐Inspired Functional Aerogel Fibers with Engineerable Core–Shell Morphology
- Creators
- Ali Akbar Isari - University of British ColumbiaMajed Amini - University of British ColumbiaMojdeh Rezaei-khamseh - University of British ColumbiaVahid Rad - Drexel UniversityHatef Yousefian - University of British ColumbiaMasoud Soroush - Drexel UniversityMohammad Arjmand (Corresponding Author) - University of British Columbia
- Publication Details
- Advanced materials technologies, Forthcoming
- Publisher
- Wiley; HOBOKEN
- Number of pages
- 13
- Grant note
- National Science Foundation
This research was financially supported primarily by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) with funding refer-ence numbers ALLRP 555586-20 and 569824-21. V.R. and M.S. would liketo acknowledge financial support from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant CMMI-2132141. Any opinions, findings, con-clusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those ofthe authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF. The au-thors acknowledge the support of the Fipke Laboratory for Trace ElementResearch (FiLTER) for access to the scanning electron microscope. Theauthors acknowledge the support of Prof. Sunny Li's laboratory and hisPh.D. student, Ruoyao Li, for assistance with thermal conductivity mea-surements. The authors acknowledge the Syilx Okanagan Nation for us-ing their traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory, the land on whichthe research was conducted.
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Chemical and Biological Engineering
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:001576640000001
- Other Identifier
- 991022118574104721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Materials Science, Multidisciplinary