Highly Elastic and Conductive Lamellar Wood Sponge via Cell Wall Reconfiguration Toward Smart Multifunctional...

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Nanotechnology
• Sustainable Materials

Background:

• Porous foams and aerogels offer potential for pressure sensing, EMI shielding, and thermal insulation.
• Structural instability and poor fatigue resistance limit the application of current materials.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a highly elastic, fatigue-resistant, and electrically conductive lamellar wood sponge.
• To address the limitations of current porous materials for advanced applications.

Main Methods:

• A
• top-down
• cell wall reconfiguration strategy using natural balsa wood.
• Conversion of wood's cellular structure into an arch-shaped lamellar architecture with chemical cross-linking.
• In situ polymerization coating of the scaffold with conductive polypyrrole (PPy).

Main Results:

• The resulting PPy-coated cross-linked wood sponge (CWS@PPy) exhibits reversible compressibility and excellent fatigue resistance.
• CWS@PPy shows tunable electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding effectiveness and high-sensitivity pressure sensing (0.72 kPa^-1).
• The material demonstrates low thermal conductivity (0.037 W m^-1 K^-1) for adaptive thermal management.

Conclusions:

• The developed mechanically robust and conductive wood sponge offers a versatile and sustainable platform.
• This material is suitable for next-generation smart devices requiring advanced functionalities.
• The proposed strategy overcomes limitations of traditional porous materials.