Hierarchical gradient-structured leather/aerogel/MXene composite for integrated thermo-mechanical protection, thermal management, and intelligent impact monitoring

A hierarchical gradient-structured Leather/Aerogel/MXene (LAM) composite is fabricated. • Facile fabrication with tailorable and scalable manufacturing potential. • Impact force absorption of 80% and impact energy dissipation of ~98%. • Features thermal insulation, Joule heating, and real-time impact monitoring. • Intelligent marching blanket shows great potential for extreme environment protection. Mechanical impacts and drastic temperature fluctuations pose escalating threats to human operations in extreme environments, driving an urgent need for advanced personal protective materials that integrate superior impact resistance and efficient thermal regulation capabilities. Herein, a Leather/Aerogel/MXene (LAM) composite with hierarchical gradient porous structure is fabricated via in-situ freeze-casting of aramid nanofiber (ANF) aerogel on a natural leather skeleton combined with spray-coating of conductive MXene nanosheets. Interfacial hydrogen bonding and multiscale fiber bridging between the leather matrix and ANF nanofibers enable stable heterogeneous integration and effective interfacial stress transfer. Benefiting from this rational structural design, the LAM composite achieves excellent mechanical and thermal insulation properties. In comparison to pure ANF aerogel, the LAM shows significantly enhanced tensile and puncture resistance performance. Notably, the LAM shows high impact force dissipation rate of 80% ± 3% and impact energy dissipation rate of approximately 98% ± 1% under low-velocity impact of 10 cm drop height. Meanwhile, the abundant internal porous structure of the LAM efficiently suppresses gas convection and reduce thermal radiation transmittance, exhibiting excellent temperature isolation effect in both high and low temperature environments. The continuous MXene conductive network further endows the LAM with voltage-tunable Joule heating performance for active thermal management. Finally, detachable intelligent marching blankets and intelligent waist supports are designed, integrating thermo-mechanical protection, active thermotherapy, and impact monitoring functions. This work provides a feasible structural design strategy for multifunctional integrated protective materials, showing promising application potential in personal protection under extreme environments. Download: Download high-res image (176KB) Download: Download full-size image