ABSTRACT
Nanocellulose has emerged as a sustainable and promising nanomaterial owing to its unique structures, superb properties, and natural abundance. The high mechanical strength and modulus, low coefficient of thermal expansion, superior gas-barrier, and high electrical resistivity properties make nanocellulose attractive in diverse sectors, such as wearable flexible electronic equipment, paper-based generator, organic light-emitting diode, supercapacitor, and battery. We have developed a superhydrophobic, highly transparent, and hazy nanopaper made of cellulose nanofibrils and polysiloxanes. This novel nanopaper that simultaneously achieved light-management and self-cleaning capabilities not only led to an enhancement in overall energy conversion efficiency (10.43%) of solar cell by simply coating but also recovered most of the photovoltaic performance losses due to dust accumulation by a self-cleaning process, showing great application in solar cells. In order to explore the application of nanocellulose in energy storage, we have designed a novel and facial method for the fabrication of a cellulose carbon aerogel by using the melamine foam as the skeleton. This work provides an effective and low-cost strategy to fabricate carbon aerogel with the compressible and conductive property, showing great potential for applications in compressible electrodes for supercapacitors. As an important subfield of wearable devices, wearable and flexible strain nanocellulose-based sensors were prepared for electronic skins. A tough, self-healing, and self-adhesive ionic cellulose gel was designed with superior strain-sensitive features. The ionic gels display biocompatible and repeatable adhesiveness to various substrates including human skin tissue, revealing a promising candidate for wearable sensors.
