Silk Nanofibers/Carbon Nanotube Conductive Aerogel

• DOI: 10.1002/marc.202400702
• Publication Date: 2024-11-15T14:55:26Z
• Authors: Yanfei Feng; Xiaotian Wang; Yunfeng Dai; Siying Feng; Lechen Li; Renchuan You
• Keywords: Biocompatibility

Abstract Natural silk nanofibers (SNF) are attractive conductive substrates due to their high aspect ratio, outstanding mechanical strength, excellent biocompatibility, and controllable degradability. However, the inherently non‐conductivity severely restricts potential sensor application of SNF‐based aerogels. In this work, nanofibrous aerogels with low‐density achieved through freeze–drying by dispersing carbon nanotubes (CNT) into SNF suspension. The addition CNT significantly increases conductivity improved properties composite SEM results reveal that distinct hierarchical structure comprising micropores networks within pores is formed when content reached 30%. Furthermore, increased cell viability suggested biocompatibility SNF‐CNT‐based aerogel for tissue‐engineering applications. Subsequently, elastic water‐borne polyurethane (WPU) incorporated SNF‐CNT system construct good sensing properties. introduction WPU demonstrates enhanced compressive performances an exceptionally recovery ratio 99.8%, thereby exhibiting a stable lossless strain‐sensing signal output at 5% strain. This study provides feasible choice strategy exploring in functional