Hydrophobic Interaction‐Directed Solvent‐Free Ambient‐Pressure‐Dried MXene Aerogels

Scalable solvent-free ambient-pressure drying (APD) of robust multifunctional MXene aerogels remains significantly challenging. We present a hydrophobic interaction-directed assembly strategy among MXene, chitosan (CS), and glutaraldehyde (GA) to engineer aerogels with programmable hydrophobicity-mechanics. Selective reduction of CS amine groups suppresses capillary forces upon solvent-free APD, yielding 4,477% compressive strength enhancement over conventional MXene aerogels. Composition tuning delivers switchable electromagnetic functionality: 25.6 wt.% CS generates a 76 dB microwave shielding effectiveness, while 67.4 wt.% yields a 6.4 GHz broadband microwave absorption, which is comparable to the best…

• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Awards: 22205131, 22375115, 22504073, 22422503
• NS
  Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province

  Award: 2024HWYQ‐017