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Self‐Assembled Recyclable Hierarchical Bucky Aerogels
Author(s) -
Karakaya Mehmet,
Saini Deepika,
Podila Ramakrishna,
Skove Malcolm J.,
Rao Apparao M.,
Thevamaran Ramathasan,
Daraio Chiara
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
advanced engineering materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.938
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1527-2648
pISSN - 1438-1656
DOI - 10.1002/adem.201400414
Subject(s) - materials science , composite material , carbon nanotube , porosity , aerogel , absorption (acoustics) , buckypaper , chemical engineering , resilience (materials science) , nanotechnology , engineering
We describe a simple method for the scalable synthesis of three‐dimensional, elastic, and recyclable multi‐wall carbon nanotube (MWCNT) based light weight (density <1 g cm −3 ) bucky‐aerogels (BAGs) that are capable of efficiently absorbing non‐polar solvents and separating oil‐in‐water emulsions. Our facile synthesis involves the self‐assembly of MWCNTs and carbon fibers into a multi‐layered, highly porous, and hierarchical structure that can be easily flexed, compressed, or burnt without any noticeable changes in its structure and absorption capacity. The BAG surface absorbs non‐polar solvents efficiently up to ≈20 times its own weight due to its superhydrophobic nature arising from the presence of MWCNTs. Furthermore, BAGs exhibit excellent resilience to impact by recovering more than 70% of the deformation. The energy dissipated by BAGs at 80% compressive strain is in the order of 500 kJ m −3 , which is nearly 50 times more than the energy dissipated by commercial foams with similar densities.