Scalable and Heavy Foam Functionalization by Electrode-Inspired Sticky Jammed Fluids for Efficient Indoor Air-Quality Management

Functionalization of polymer foams by surface coating is of great interest for advanced flow-interactive materials working with well-controlled 3D open channels. However, realizing heavy functional coating via a fast and recyclable way remains a big challenge. Here, inspired by the battery electrodes, we propose a scalable mechanic-assisted heavy coating strategy based on the design of sticky jammed fluid (SJF) to conquer the above challenge. Similar to the electrode slurry, the SJF is dominated by a high concentration of active material (≥20 wt% of active carbon, for instance) uniformly dispersed in a protein binder solution. Due to the sticky and solid-rich nature of the SJF, one can realize a high coating efficiency of 60 wt% gain per coating. The critical factors controlling the coating processing and quality are further identified and discussed. Furthermore, the functionalized foam is demonstrated as a high-performance shape-customizable toxic gas remover, which can absorb formaldehyde very efficiently at different circumstances, including static adsorption, flow-based filtration, and source interception. Finally, the foam skeleton and the active materials are easily recycled by a facile solvent treatment. This study may inspire new scalable way for fast, heavy, and customizable functionalization of polymeric foams.