Bioinspired synthesis of a soft-nanofilament-based coating consisting of polysilsesquioxanes/polyamine and its divergent surface control

Programmable and Shape-Color Synchronous Dual-Response Wood with Thermal Stimulus

Stimuli-responsive materials exhibit huge potential in sensors, actuators, and electronics; however, their further development for reinforcement, visualization, and biomass-incorporation remains challenging. Herein, based on the impregnation of thermochromic microcapsule (TCM)-doped dynamic covalent vitrimers, a programmable shape-color dual-responsive wood (SRW-TC) was demonstrated with robust anisotropic structures and exchangeable covalent adaptable networks. Under mild conditions, the resultant SRW-TC displays feasible shape memorability and programmability, resulting from the rigidity-flexibility shift induced by the glass-transition temperature (34.99 °C) and transesterification reaction triggered by the topology freezing transition temperature (149.62 °C). Furthermore, the obtained SRW-TC possesses satisfactory mechanical performance (tensile strength of 45.70 MPa), thermal insulation (thermal conductivity of 0.27 W/m K), anisotropic light management, and benign optical properties (transmittance of 51.73% and haze of 99.67% at 800 nm). Importantly, the incorporation of compatible TCM enables SRW-TC to visualize shape memory feasibility and rigidity/flexibility switching and respond to the external thermal stimulus through the thermal-induced shape-color synchronous dual-responsiveness, which successfully demonstrates the applications of sensing temperature, grasping objects, encrypting/decoding icon messages, and so on. The proposed facile and highly effective strategy could serve as a guideline for developing high-performance multifunctional wood composite with promising intelligent applications in performance visualization, environmental sensing, materials interactivity, information dual-encryption, local precision shape and color regulation, etc.

One-dimensional silicone nanofilaments

A decade ago one-dimensional silicone nanofilaments (1D-SNF) such as fibres and wires were described for the first time. Since then, the exploration of 1D-SNF has led to remarkable advancements with respect to material science and surface science: one-, two- and three-dimensional nanostructures of silicone were unknown before. The discovery of silicone nanostructures marks a turning point in the research on the silicone material at the nanoscale. Coatings made of 1D-SNF are among the most superhydrophobic surfaces known today. They are free of fluorine, can be applied to a large range of technologically important materials and their properties can be modified chemically. This opens the way to many interesting applications such as water harvesting, superoleophobicity, separation of oil and water, patterned wettability and storage and manipulation of data on a surface. Because of their high surface area, coatings consisting of 1D-SNF are used for protein adsorption experiments and as carrier systems for catalytically active nanoparticles. This paper reviews the current knowledge relating to the broad development of 1D-SNF technologies. Common preparation and coating techniques are presented along with a comparison and discussion of the published coating parameters to provide an insight on how these affect the topography of the 1D-SNF or coating. The proposed mechanisms of growth are presented, and their potentials and shortcomings are discussed. We introduce all explored applications and finally identify future prospects and potentials of 1D-SNF with respect to applications in material science and surface science.