mcdonabe

Nature Communications, Published online: 22 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-73599-8

Bioinspired honeycomb graphene/calcium alginate aerogel was fabricated via phase-separation-based structuring. The precise honeycomb structure enables the aerogel to bear 250,000 times its own weight, and graphene network promotes thermal conduction. Encapsulating PCM into the aerogel achieves synergistic enhancement in post-phase-change compressive strength and thermal conductivity. In CPU thermal management tests, the phase change composite reduced the peak temperature by 10.2°C.

ABSTRACT

Passive thermal management systems that utilize phase change materials (PCMs) demonstrate significant potential in addressing the challenges of electronic overheating, but the low associated thermal conductivity and liquid PCM leakage hinder practical applications. Aerogel encapsulation can deal with these technical limitations, but the aerogels exhibit structural collapse under thermal-mechanical stress. In this study, a biomimetic honeycomb strategy is proposed for the fabrication of mechanically robust and thermally conductive honeycomb graphene/calcium alginate aerogels used in PCM encapsulation. The synergy associated with biomimetic structure and compositional strengthening delivers a honeycomb aerogel with a specific strength of 19.2 kN m kg⁻¹ at 20% strain. The deposition of a continuous graphene layer on the honeycomb walls generates efficient thermal conductive pathways. Following paraffin encapsulation, the phase change composite demonstrates a post-phase-change compressive strength of 2.49 MPa, an enhanced thermal conductivity (4.18 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹), and a high melting enthalpy (199.0 J g⁻¹). The resultant composite exhibits a multifunctional synergy in mechanical support, thermal conduction, and heat storage. The proposed biomimetic honeycomb strategy can serve as a controllable and flexible approach to constructing aerogels with coupled mechanical robustness and multifunctional capabilities.

Gradient enamel-mimetic composites (GEMC) are fabricated by the magnetic-assisted dual-directional freezing assembly of amorphous ZrO₂ layer-coated hydroxyapatite nanowires and subsequently, scalable layer-by-layer assembly with nanowires’ direction crossed stacking. The enamel analog exhibits high strength and toughness surpassing the natural tooth enamel, and simultaneously high stiffness and damping comparable to those of enamel, as well as high fatigue resistance. Such an enamel biomimetic strategy offers guidelines for the engineering of gradient structure materials with excellent mechanical properties.

Abstract

Materials with excellent comprehensive mechanical properties (e.g., strength and toughness, stiffness and damping, fatigue et al.) are highly desirable for engineering applications, while it is still challenged for design. Tooth enamel is a typical biomaterial with outstanding mechanical properties that originate from its multiscale and gradient structure. Some composites with enamel-like multiscale structures are successfully synthesized, but mimicking the gradient structure of tooth enamel is still difficult to realize. Here, an enamel analog is fabricated with a gradient structure similar to inner enamel based on the crisscross assembly of aligned hybrid nanowires through a magnetic-assisted freeze casting and subsequent mechanical compression strategy. The gradient enamel-mimetic composites exhibited high strength and toughness surpassing the natural tooth enamel, and simultaneously high stiffness and damping comparable to those of enamel, as well as high fatigue resistance. The interface reinforcement of gradient structure, crystal/amorphous and organic/inorganic, fundamentally accounted for high mechanical performance. The gradient design strategy provides an avenue for the engineering of structural materials with excellent mechanical properties.

The precise synthesis of 1D materials has enabled the discovery of physical properties only accessible in length scales close to the atomic scale. Herein, it is demonstrated that encapsulation within single-walled carbon nanotubes with matching diameters leads to a stoichiometric quasi-1D van der Waals polymorph of a 2D pnictogen chalcogenide, Sb₂Te₃, with a blue-shifted band gap in the short-wave infrared regime.

Abstract

The discovery and synthesis of atomically precise low-dimensional inorganic materials have led to numerous unusual structural motifs and nascent physical properties. However, access to low-dimensional van der Waals (vdW)-bound analogs of bulk crystals is often limited by chemical considerations arising from structural factors like atomic radii, bonding or coordination, and electronegativity. Using single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) as confinement templates, we demonstrate the synthesis of a short-wave infrared-absorbing quasi-1D (q-1D) chain polymorph of Sb₂Te₃ ([Sb₄Te₆]_n) that is structurally and electronically distinct from its 2D counterpart. It is found that the q-1D chain polymorph has both three- and five-coordinate Sb atoms covalently bonded to Te and is thermodynamically stabilized by the electrostatic interaction between the encapsulated chain and the model SWCNT. The complementary experimental and computational results demonstrate the synthetic advantage of vdW nanotube confinement in the discovery of low-dimensional polytypes with drastically altered physical properties and potential applications in energy conversion processes.