Multifunctional biomass composite aerogel co-modified by MXene and Ag nanowires for health monitoring and synergistic antibacterial applications

Multifunctional biomass composite aerogel was prepared by co-modifying MXene and Ag nanowires (AgNWs) on bacterial cellulose/chitosan (BC/CH) composite aerogel through a facile method for health monitoring and photo-thermal antibacterial applications. • Novel biomass composite aerogel co-modified by MXene and Ag nanowires was prepared. • The aerogel showed health monitoring and photo-thermal antibacterial functions. • The aerogel was successfully employed to monitor various human body motions. • The aerogel displayed excellent photothermal conversion performance. • Synergistic antibacterial mechanism of the aerogel was analyzed in this work. Single function of biomass aerogel restricts its further development, multifunctional biomass aerogel is becoming an urgent need. In this work, multifunctional biomass composite aerogel was prepared by co-modifying MXene and Ag nanowires (AgNWs) on bacterial cellulose/chitosan (BC/CH) composite aerogel through a facile method combining physical mixture, lyophilization and electrostatic adsorption. The as-prepared BC/CH/MXene/AgNWs composite aerogel could be applied as health monitoring sensor and photo-thermal antibacterial material. As a sensor, it showed high sensitivity, short response time, and satisfactory cycling stability for health monitoring. Moreover, the composite aerogel was successfully employed to monitor various human body motions including foot movements, elbow movements, wrist movement, respiration, and throat vibration pronunciation. In addition, the composite aerogel displayed excellent photothermal conversion performance, which could be quickly heated to more than 60 °C in 60 s under NIR laser irradiation (808 nm, 0.6 W/cm 2 ). The BC/CH/MXene/AgNWs composite aerogel showed nearly 100% sterilizing effect due to the synergistic antibacterial effect from common antibacterial role of CH/AgNWs and photo-thermal antibacterial role of MXene. The novel aerogel possesses more response characteristics and better antibacterial property than existing biomass aerogels, which may develop potential application prospect in wearable and implantable bioelectronic material for health monitoring.