Aerogel, as an ultralight solids with a typical porous network and super-low thermal conductivity, could be a promising super thermal insulation and thermal protection materials for aerospace, buildings, electric vehicles, and portable electronics, etc. However, almost aerogel are in bulk form without the character of thin and flexible. Meanwhile, it is difficult to post processing, such as cutting and compress, due to its poor mechanical strength. Therefore, the design of aerogel in low dimensional form is still a challenging, which restrict the using of aerogel in thermal management, such as the thermal control requirement of the portable 5G electronic devices of the future.

Silica aerogel is a porous material with unique properties such as low density, high porosity, high specific surface area and low thermal conductivity. It has been widely used in the fields of environment, energy, catalysis, and architecture. The preparation process mainly involves sol-gel, aging and drying processes. Due to its slow gel process, it is difficult for silica aerogels to form continuous fibers, which limits its application. In view of this, the group of Prof. Xuetong Zhang from the Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences explored the key factors required to achieve fiber formation and developed a reaction spinning method for the preparation of aerogel fibers. Through the structural design of the precursor and the post-treatment of the fiber, a new type of silica aerogel fiber with adjustable transparency and hydrophilicity was developed, and it was verified that the method can also be applied to titanium oxide aerogel fiber.

Metamaterials with negative magnetic permeability, negative permittivity, negative thermal conductivity, et al. having great importance in various application fields including electromagnetism, acoustics, mechanics, thermotics. Among which, auxetic architectures with a negative Poisson's ratio describe the degree of transverse deformation of a given material when it is axially stretched or compressed. Such designable auxetic architectures possess intriguing mechanical properties including superior shear resistance, indentation resistance, fracture toughness and damping performance, promising a diverse range of applications, particularly under stringent conditions such as in aerospace, defence and smart systems as well as biomedical devices.

Prof. Zhang from Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionic, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SINANO), in collaboration with Professor Yongping Chen of Hainan University, prepared ANF/CNT hybrid aerogel films with excellent mechanical and electrical properties by compounding high strength aramid nanofibers (ANF) and electricity / thermal conductive carbon nanotubes (CNT), then hydrophobic FC-ANF/CNT aerogel films were obtained by supplemented with hydrophobic fluorocarbon (FC) resin modification.

Graphene aerogel, assembled from graphene sheets, with an ntrinsically high specifc surface area, and continuous thermal and electrical conductivity networks, has demonstrated unparalleled advantages in energy storage, sensing and adsorption fields.

Because of the higher and higher requirements for the warmth, portability and functionalization of cold-proof clothing, the demand for its basic material: warm fiber is also getting higher and higher. The application potential of natural fiber and traditional chemical fiber has almost been developed, so it is necessary to innovate the structure of traditional chemical fiber in order to obtain better thermal performance.

Herein, professor Xuetong Zhang and Alexander Eychmüller reported on a temperature-invariant super-flexibility of BN aerogels constructed by intertwined BN nanoribbons derived from high temperature amination of the hydrogen-bond directed assemblies of melamine and boric acid. These BN nanoribbon aerogels can bear compressing, bending, twisting, or cutting forces over a wide temperature range from liquid nitrogen temperature (−196 °C) to more than 1000 °C.

The aerogel team led by Zhang Xuetong, a researcher at the Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionic, China Academy of Sciences has prepared a flexible aerogel film with high porosity (98%) and high specific surface area (365.99 m2/g) by dissolving the Kevlar of DuPont TM, scraping coating, sol-gel and subsequent freeze-drying process.

On December 7th, both professor Zhang Xuetong of advanced materials department and professor Wang Qiangbin of nano biomedical research department invited professor Alexander Eychmüller of Tu Dresden University of Germany visited the Institute. Alexander was employed as a visiting professor of the Institute. During the meeting, Alexander Eychmüller gave an academic report entitled "nanoparticles from Dresden and what they are good for".

In the afternoon of November 26, the unveiling ceremony of "advanced electronic materials joint laboratory" was held in Suzhou Institute of nanotechnology.

Prof. Zhang was officially elected to the Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) on October 26.

The latest research results of our group were recommended as highlights by MaterialsViewsChina.

Smart fibre, an essential unit for wearable electronics, which could response to external stimuli, such as photonic, electrical, and thermal signal, etc.

Polyimide (PI) aerogels have excellent mechanical properties (e.g. Young’s modulus over 100 MPa), high temperature stability (up to 600 °C), well aging resistant performance, good radiation resistance performance and outstanding flame retardant performance. However, the native PI aerogels are hydrophilic and therefore easy to absorb a large amount of water in the damp environment, which results in the destruction of the aerogel microstructure and the depravation of the aerogel performance.

Prof. Zhang from the Suzhou Institute of Nano-tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (referred to as Nano Institute), the Chinese Academy of Sciences "Hundred Talents Program", received a grant from The Royal Society "Newton Advanced Fellowship" on March 22.

As a typical representative of the large family of aerogels, silica aerogel has far surpassed other types of aerogels, such as carbon aerogels, graphene aerogels, polymer aerogels, etc., and has taken the lead in realizing industrial production. It has extremely wide application value in high-tech fields such as aerospace, national defense, and civil fields such as construction and industrial pipeline insulation. However, silica aerogels still face problems such as long production cycle, high production cost, weak mechanical strength, and lack of functionalization. In order to solve the above problems, our team through precursor design, sol-gel chemical process control, and gelation parameter adjustment methods to optimize and coordinate, and achieved a series of important progress:

Supramolecular systems refer to assemblies constructed through secondary interactions (non-covalent bonds), since their dynamic interactions with reversible of supramolecular, it has promising application in intelligent recognition, controllable release, orderly assembly, and intelligent. Aerogel is a type of nanoporous material prepared by sol-gel chemical transformation and supercritical drying, its unique structural features, such as large specific surface area, low density, high porosity, and large pore volume, has brought low thermal conductivity, low sound conductivity, low dielectric constant, high transparency, and other properties, which widely used in thermal insulation, catalysis, energy storage, oil-water separation, drug carriers and other fields.

Graphene aerogel microspheres (GAMs) are unique materials that consisted by graphene porous network, and integrated various typical characters, such as electrical conductivity of graphene, high porosity of aerogel and monodispersed of porous microspheres. GAMs can be used as templates for drug delivery, superabsorbent, synthesizing porous inorganic catalysts or functional composite particles, etc.

Aerogel was once hailed as a new material that changed the world. It has extremely broad application prospects in high-tech fields such as aerospace, national defense and civil fields such as construction and industrial pipeline insulation.

Aerogel is a kind of lightweight and porous nano material, which has extremely broad application prospects in high-tech fields such as aerospace, national defense, and civil fields such as construction and industrial pipeline insulation.