Lightweight shear stiffening gel with enhanced mechanical and thermal-insulating performance for advanced fire suit

Herein, a lightweight and thermal-insulating shear stiffening gel (LT-SSG) with anti-impact was prepared by introducing insulating glass microspheres BR20 into SSG. The density of LT-SSG was 49.09% lower than that of SSG. Meantime, LT-SSG showed excellent energy absorption effect. The remained impact force of LT-SSG was only 0.23 kN compared with 0.41 kN of SSG when impacted from 20 cm. Moreover, LT-SSG with good thermal insulation performance could effectively isolate surrounding temperature to 42.6 ℃ at 80 ℃ and block external cold temperature to protect the heat loss from human body. While SSG as well as the breakage of BR20 particles absorbed and dissipated much impact energy, proving its excellent protective properties. Finally, a multifunctional Kevlar safeguarding suit (MKSS) was developed. It showed the ability to resist low-speed drop hammer and high-speed ballistic impact. To this end, the reported LT-SSG showed promising applications in fire suit and body armors.