Mechanically Strengthened Aerogels through Multiscale, Multicompositional, and Multidimensional Approaches: A Review

In recent decades, aerogels have attracted tremendous attention in academia and industry as a class of lightweight and porous multifunctional nanomaterial. Despite their wide application range, the low mechanical durability hinders their processing and handling, particularly in applications requiring complex physical structures. "Mechanically strengthened aerogels" have emerged as a potential solution to address this drawback. Since the first report on aerogels in 1931, various modified synthesis processes have been introduced in the last few decades to enhance the aerogel mechanical strength, further advancing their multifunctional scope. This review summarizes the state-of-the-art developments of mechanically strengthened aerogels through multicompositional and multidimensional approaches. Furthermore, new trends and future directions for as prevailed commercialization of aerogels as plastic materials are discussed. It has already been approximate to 90 years since the first development of aerogels, and many researchers have devoted tremendous efforts to enhance their mechanical properties, which is yet completely achieved. This review presents multiscale, multicompositional and multidimensional strategies, resulting from flexible synthesis techniques for 0D-1D, 0D-2D, 1D-2D, and 0D-1D-2D combined aerogels. image