Abstract
Some polymers are flexible, foldable, and wearable. Structural—functional composite is fabricated by adding inorganic fillers with functional properties. Up to date, compared with the polymer matrix, the composite prepared by polymer-inorganic fillers has lower flexibility, higher brittleness, and higher modulus of elasticity. In this paper, three-dimensional (3D) net-shaped submicron α-Al2O3, orthorhombic ZrO2, and rutile TiO2 fiber were fabricated by solution blowing spinning on a large scale. On the contrary, the elastic modulus (E) of the composite prepared by this 3D ceramic fiber was greatly reduced, and the flexibility of the composite was higher than that of the polymer matrix. When the strain was 75%, the E of the 3D net-shaped Al2O3 fiber-polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) composite was 20% lower than that of PDMS. When the strain was 78%, the E of the 3D net-shaped TiO2 fiber-PDMS and 3D net-shaped ZrO2 fiber-PDMS composites decreased by 20% and 25%, respectively. This abnormal effect, namely the tunnel elastic enhancement effect, has great practical significance. In all-solid-state lithium-ion batteries, the composite inhibits lithium dendrite growth and the 3D inorganic network contributes to lithium ion transport. It is possible to promote the industrial production of low-cost and large-scale flexible solid-state lithium-ion batteries and it can enhance the energy storage density of energy storage materials. This novel idea also has bright prospects in flexible electronic materials.
Highlights
Flexible composite enables broad application in flexible solid-state batteries [1,2,3], wearable and implantable electronic devices [4,5,6,7,8], and intelligent soft robots [9,10]
The elastic modulus (E) of the composite is greatly reduced (i.e., Ecomposite < EPDMS < Eceramic), the flexibility is higher than that of the polymer matrix, and this abnormal flexibility remains unchanged in the stress–strain curve after 100 cycles
The solution was injected by syringe pump with a speed of 2 mL/h, under a gas pressure of 200 kPa, naturally stretched by the air flow and solidified to fibers associated with solvent evaporation and the 3D connected Al(NO3)3/PVP fiber network (Fig. S1 in the Electronic Supplementary Material (ESM)) was fabricated in the porous collector)
Summary
Flexible composite enables broad application in flexible solid-state batteries [1,2,3], wearable and implantable electronic devices [4,5,6,7,8], and intelligent soft robots [9,10]. The elastic modulus (E) of the composite is greatly reduced (i.e., Ecomposite < EPDMS < Eceramic), the flexibility is higher than that of the polymer matrix, and this abnormal flexibility remains unchanged in the stress–strain curve after 100 cycles. We first discovered this kind of flexibility anomalous effect of polymerinorganic composite. It is named as 3D tunnel elastic enhancement effect The discovery of this anomalous effect will open a new way to study the mechanical properties of organic–inorganic composites. The new design and understanding of the 3D network interface of organic–inorganic materials has given us an important inspiration: Starting with tradition, but not sticking to it
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