Digital Light Processing 3D-Printed Silica Aerogel and as a Versatile Host Framework for High-Performance Functional Nanocomposites.

Vat-photopolymerization-based 3D printing enables on-demand construction of customized objects with scalable production capacity and high precision. Herein, the sol-gel process for aerogels with digital light processing 3D printing to produce advanced functional materials possessing hierarchical pore structures and complex shapes is combined. It has revealed the temporal evolution of the photorheological behavior of acrylate-modified silica sols in an acid-base catalytic procedure, and confirmed that silica aerogels can be fabricated with very low acrylate content. The resulting aerogels are thermostable with intrinsic silica contents, skeletal densities, and physical characteristics similar to those of commercial silica aerogels yet distinct mechanical behaviors. More importantly, the printed silica aerogels can be used as a versatile nanoengineering platform to produce high-performance and multifunctional interpenetrating phase nanocomposites with complex shapes through programmable post-printing processes. Epoxy-based nanocomposites possessing excellent mechanical performance, ionogel-based conductive nanocomposites with decoupled electrical and mechanical properties, and anti-swelling hydrogel-based nanocomposites are demonstrated. The results of this study offer new guidelines for the design and fabrication of novel materials by additive manufacturing.