Key Laboratory of Engineering Plastics, CAS Research/Education Center for Excellence in Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
Cellulose is the most abundant natural raw materials on the earth, and this sustainable, renewable and environmentally friendly biomass has been one of hot topics in the field of polymer materials. Cellulose aerogels, as the new generation succeeding the inorganic and synthetic polymerbased aerogels, have many excellent properties and are gaining the attention of researchers due to the combined extremely high porosity and ultralow density of nanoporous aerogel and good flexibility and excellent processability of biopolymer. In the present review, the research of our group on regenerated cellulose aerogels has been summarized, including the preparation of cellulose aerogels via a dissolution/regeneration route using ionic liquid as cellulose solvent followed by supercritical CO2 drying, the preparation of celluloseinorganics composite aerogels, and the application of cellulosebased aerogels as a matrix of gel polymer electrolytes for lithiumion batteries.