Bioinspired Hierarchical Multi-Protective Membrane for Extreme Environments via Co-Electrospinning-Electrospray Strategy

Small. 2024 Jan;20(1):e2304705. doi: 10.1002/smll.202304705. Epub 2023 Aug 31.

Abstract

Extreme environments can cause severe harm to human health, and even threaten life safety. Lightweight, breathable clothing with multi-protective functions would be of great application value. However, integrating multi-protective functions into nanofibers in a facile way remains a great challenge. Here, a one-step co-electrospinning-electrospray strategy is developed to fabricate a superhydrophobic multi-protective membrane (S-MPM). The water contact angle of S-MPM can reach up to 164.3°. More importantly, S-MPM can resist the skin temperature drop (11.2 °C) or increase (17.2 °C) caused by 0 °C cold or 70 °C hot compared with pure electrospun membrane. In the cold climate (-5 °C), the anti-icing time of the S-MPM is extended by 2.52 times, while the deicing time is only 1.45 s due to the great photothermal effect. In a fire disaster situation, the total heat release and peak heat release rate values of flame retarded S-MPM drop sharply by 24.2% and 69.3%, respectively. The S-MPM will serve as the last line of defense for the human body and has the potential to trigger a revolution in the practical application of next-generation functional clothing.

Keywords: electrospinning; electrospray; flame-retardants; micro-nanoscale; multi-protective; superhydrophobic.

MeSH terms

  • Cold Temperature
  • Extreme Environments
  • Hot Temperature
  • Humans
  • Protective Clothing*
  • Skin Temperature*