Compressed hybrid cotton aerogels for stopping liquid leakage

Haemostatic devices can exert internal pressure to promote blood clotting and reduce blood flow, potentially reducing mortality rates of gunshot wounds or other deeply penetrating wounds. For the first time, cotton aerogels have been successfully developed from commercial cotton fibers. The developed cotton aerogels can be compressed to form aerogel pallets which can be used for haemostatic devices. The effects of various cotton fiber concentrations, their morphology and chitosan concentrations on volume expansion ratio, expansion time and hydrostatic pressure of the hybrid cotton aerogels are investigated comprehensively. The chitosan-coated cellulose-cotton aerogel pallets having 0.7 wt% of the fibers, with cellulose-cotton ratio of 1:2 and 0.5 wt% of the coated chitosan showed excellent haemostatic performance. The volume expansion ratio of 16.0, expansion time of 4.5 s and hydrostatic pressure of 11.5 mmHg of each aerogel pallet are much better than those of commercial haemostatic sponges. The developed cotton-based aerogels have several potential applications such as haemostatic devices, stopping serious liquid leakage, oil-spill cleaning, personal care and heat and sound insulation applications.