Enhancing flame retardant property of graphene oxide via phosphorus and nitrogen co-doping

Abstract

A simple and versatile method has been developed to efficiently enhance the flame retardant of graphene oxide (GO) by adding ammonium phosphate (AP) into GO. The as-made GO/AP exhibits excellent flame retardant properties, which emits some smoke at the beginning without catching any fire and any observable shrinkage. In contrast, the GO catches fire within several seconds and completely burns out. The improvement of flame retardancy can be attributed to the formation of CP and CN bonds with heat. This simple and effective technique of the introduction of P and N can be adopted for inexpensive mass production of GO/AP for many practical applications such as sensors, energy-storing materials, and nanomaterial electronics.