State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure , Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Shanghai 200050 , P. R. China.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100049 , P. R. China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2018 Apr 18;10(15):13019-13027. doi: 10.1021/acsami.8b02081. Epub 2018 Apr 3.
Inorganic aerogels have been attracting great interest owing to their distinctive structures and properties. However, the practical applications of inorganic aerogels are greatly restricted by their high brittleness and high fabrication cost. Herein, inspired by the cancellous bone, we have developed a novel kind of hydroxyapatite (HAP) nanowire-based inorganic aerogel with excellent elasticity, which is highly porous (porosity ≈ 99.7%), ultralight (density 8.54 mg/cm, which is about 0.854% of water density), and highly adiabatic (thermal conductivity 0.0387 W/m·K). Significantly, the as-prepared HAP nanowire aerogel can be used as the highly efficient air filter with high PM filtration efficiency. In addition, the HAP nanowire aerogel is also an ideal candidate for continuous oil-water separation, which can be used as a smart switch to separate oil from water continuously. Compared with organic aerogels, the as-prepared HAP nanowire aerogel is biocompatible, environmentally friendly, and low-cost. Moreover, the synthetic method reported in this work can be scaled up for large-scale production of HAP nanowires, free from the use of organic solvents. Therefore, the as-prepared new kind of HAP nanowire aerogel is promising for the applications in various fields.
无机气凝胶因其独特的结构和性能而引起了极大的关注。然而，无机气凝胶的实际应用受到其高脆性和高制造成本的极大限制。在此，受松质骨的启发，我们开发了一种新型的具有优异弹性的羟基磷灰石（HAP）纳米线基无机气凝胶，其具有极高的多孔性（孔隙率≈99.7%）、超轻（密度 8.54mg/cm，约为水密度的 0.854%）和高绝热性（导热系数 0.0387W/m·K）。值得注意的是，所制备的 HAP 纳米线气凝胶可用作高效空气过滤器，具有高 PM 过滤效率。此外，HAP 纳米线气凝胶也是连续油水分离的理想候选材料，可作为智能开关，实现连续油水分离。与有机气凝胶相比，所制备的 HAP 纳米线气凝胶具有生物相容性、环境友好性和低成本等优点。此外，本工作中报道的合成方法可以扩大规模生产 HAP 纳米线，无需使用有机溶剂。因此，所制备的新型 HAP 纳米线气凝胶有望在各个领域得到应用。
