Despite incorporation of organic groups into silica-based aerogels to enhance their mechanical flexibility, the wide temperature reliability of the modified silicone aerogel is inevitably degraded. Therefore, facile synthesis of soft silicone aerogels with wide-temperature stability remains challenging. Herein, novel silicone aerogels containing a high content of Si are reported by using polydimethylvinylsiloxane (PDMVS), a hydrosilylation adduct with water-repellent groups, as a "flexible chain segment" embedded within the aerogel network. The poly(2-dimethoxymethylsilyl)ethylmethylvinylsiloxane (PDEMSEMVS) aerogel is fabricated through a cost-effective ambient temperature/pressure drying process. The optimized aerogel exhibits exceptional performance, such as ultra-low density (50 mg cm-3), wide-temperature mechanical flexibility, and super-hydrophobicity, in comparison to the previous polysiloxane aerogels. A significant reduction in the density of these aerogels is achieved while maintaining a high crosslinking density by synthesizing gel networks with well-defined macromolecules through hydrolytic polycondensation crosslinking of PDEMSEMVS. Notably, the pore/nanoparticle size of aerogels can be fine-tuned by optimizing the gel solvent type. The as-prepared silicone aerogels demonstrate selective absorption, efficient oil-water separation, and excellent thermal insulation properties, showing promising applications in oil/water separation and thermal protection.
Keywords: aerogel; hydrosilylation; micro‐/nano‐structure; polymer; super‐hydrophobic.
© 2023 Wiley‐VCH GmbH.