Reinforcing silica aerogels with tungsten disulfide nanotubes

• Highlights for the paper: “Reinforcing silica aerogels with tungsten disulfide nanotubes”.
• We report the preparation of silica aerogels compounded with small amounts of tungsten disulfide nanotubes.
• Tungsten disulfide nanotubes can be easily dispersed in a silica aerogel to make a stronger composite material.
• Mechanical properties of the composite aerogel were studied using Three-point bending and uniaxial compression tests.
• Composite aerogels made of silica with 0.1 wt% tungsten disulfide nanotubes exhibits improved toughness.

Silica aerogels are unique solids with extremely high porosity (>99.5% air by volume), transparency and low density. With their high surface area and thermal resistivity they make excellent heat insulators. However, due to their fine structure they are fragile and therefore impractical for structural applications. To improve their mechanical properties we suggest incorporation of minute amounts of tungsten disulfide nanotubes. Nanotubes of tungsten disulfide are known for their high mechanical strength, strain and thermal stability. Adding some 0.1–1 wt% of tungsten disulfide nanotubes to a variety of polymers clearly lead to substantial improvement in their mechanical properties.The current study reports the preparation of silica aerogels compounded with small amounts of tungsten disulfide nanotubes. Three-point bending and uniaxial compression tests of the composite aerogel revealed 85% and 23% improvement in the composite material toughness, respectively.

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