Super-elasticity at 4 K of covalently crosslinked polyimide aerogels with negative Poisson’s ratio

Yang Cheng, Xiang Zhang, Yixiu Qin, Pei Dong, Wei Yao, John Matz, Pulickel M. Ajayan, Jianfeng Shen () and Mingxin Ye ()
Additional contact information
Yang Cheng: Fudan University
Xiang Zhang: Rice University
Yixiu Qin: Fudan University
Pei Dong: George Mason University
Wei Yao: Fudan University
John Matz: George Mason University
Pulickel M. Ajayan: Rice University
Jianfeng Shen: Fudan University
Mingxin Ye: Fudan University

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract The deep cryogenic temperatures encountered in aerospace present significant challenges for the performance of elastic materials in spacecraft and related apparatus. Reported elastic carbon or ceramic aerogels overcome the low-temperature brittleness in conventional elastic polymers. However, complicated fabrication process and high costs greatly limited their applications. In this work, super-elasticity at a deep cryogenic temperature of covalently crosslinked polyimide (PI) aerogels is achieved based on scalable and low-cost directional dimethyl sulfoxide crystals assisted freeze gelation and freeze-drying strategy. The covalently crosslinked chemical structure, cellular architecture, negative Poisson’s ratio (−0.2), low volume shrinkage (3.1%), and ultralow density (6.1 mg/cm3) endow the PI aerogels with an elastic compressive strain up to 99% even in liquid helium (4 K), almost zero loss of resilience after dramatic thermal shocks (∆T = 569 K), and fatigue resistance over 5000 times compressive cycles. This work provides a new pathway for constructing polymer-based materials with super-elasticity at deep cryogenic temperature, demonstrating much promise for extensive applications in ongoing and near-future aerospace exploration.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24388-y Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-24388-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-24388-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().