Fabrication of flexible SiO2 nanofibrous yarn via a conjugate electrospinning process

Nowadays, different kinds of polymers, including ceramics, are electrospun into fibrous materials with different structures by electrospinning. Generally, the as-spun ceramic fibers are randomly oriented membranes and brittle without flexibility. Here, we report the fabrication of flexible SiO2 electrospun yarns using poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) as a template through a conjugate electrospinning process and calcination. It was found that the calcined as-spun fibers and yarns are obviously thinned with PVA component removal. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and energy-dispersive spectroscopy examinations suggested that the obtained yarn after calcination was SiO2 yarn. The SiO2 yarn showed good flexibility without cracking after 180° bending. The flexible ceramic yarn may have potential application in functional textiles.

Polymer Template Synthesis of Soft, Light, and Robust Oxide Ceramic Films

Oxide ceramic materials underpin a wide variety of technologies. However, the inherent fragility of these materials limits their use in emerging fields like wearable electronics and soft energy storage devices. Here, we develop a sol-gel electrospinning technique followed by calcination to create a range of oxide ceramic nanofiber films that exhibit significant softness without fragility after various deformations. This approach causes the ceramic crystals to fuse together at a low temperature during their growth within the polymer nanofiber templates. All the synthesized ceramic films, from SiO₂ to BaTiO₃, Li_0.33La_0.56TiO₃, and Li₇La₃Zr₂O₁₂, have silk-like softness of <31 mN, low density of <0.36 g/cm³ and robust fire resistance to 1,000°C. Fabricated separators based on these films display large electrolyte uptakes of >900% and high thermal insulation performance, enhancing the rate capability and safety of lithium batteries. The reported method allows scalable synthesis of soft oxide ceramic films with properties appealing for applications.

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A scalable method is developed for the fabrication of soft oxide ceramic films

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A wide variety of soft, light, and robust oxide ceramic films are fabricated

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A detailed soft deformation mechanism of the ceramic films is illustrated

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The soft ceramic films exhibit appealing properties for applications

Electrospun nanofiber reinforced composites: a review

High performance electrospun nanofibers could be used to fabricate nanofiber reinforced composites.