Preparation and heat-insulating property of the bio-inspired ZrO2 fibers based on the silk template

Natural silk fibers were used as the template to prepare biomorphic ZrO2 fibers. Silk fibers were first immersed into a Zr(NO3)4 solution and then sintered in air at high temperatures to produce the final ZrO2 fibers. Their microstructures, phases, synthesis process, infrared absorption spectra and thermal conductivity were analyzed. The results show that these synthesized fibers retained the morphologies of silk faithfully. These ZrO2 fibers also obtained the ability of absorbing infrared from the silk, so that they possessed better heat-insulating property than the traditional ZrO2 fibers.