Preparation of novel composite aerogel with conductive and antibacterial via constructing three-dimensional crosslinked structure

Due to their excellent structural properties and straightforward functional design, aerogel materials have garnered extensive attentions in wearable electronic devices, flexible sensors, and other fields. However, for flexible wearable devices, the integration of the fundamental properties of aerogel (strength, stretchability, and antibacterial properties) is very necessary for their practical application. As part of our research, we creatively use soft one-dimensional cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) in combination with rigid two-dimensional graphene nanosheets (GNS) to jointly enhance polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) aerogels. Incredibly, the tensile strength (74 MPa) and compressive stress (1.8 MPa) of the composite aerogel with only 1% CNC and a tiny amount of GNS added. Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) endow the composite aerogels (PVA/CNC/GNS) with distinct bacteriostatic properties against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. Composite aerogel successfully detects human motion (wrist bending, finger bending), while resisting the damage of some bacteria to the human body, indicating significant potential in flexible sensors.