Experimental Investigation on 3D Graphene-CNT Hybrid Foams with Different Interactions.

Hye-Soo Kim,Jonghwan Suhr,Junmo Kang,Yan Sun,Mei Wang,Kyunghoon Kim,Jae Jung,Jae-Do Nam,Stephanie Lee,Sung-Min Kim

doi:10.3390/nano8090694

Abstract

Due to the exceptional properties of graphene, numerous possibilities for real applications in various fields have been provided. However, it is a challenge to fabricate bulk graphene materials with properties arising from the nature of individual graphene sheets, and which assemble into monolithic three-dimensional structures. If 3D structured graphene foam were made instead of 2D structured graphene, it is expected that it would be a facile fabrication, with relatively low cost with the possibility of scale-up, and would maintain the intrinsic properties of graphene. To solve the weaknesses of 2D structured graphene, this study aimed to fabricate a 3D graphene-carbon nanotubes (CNT) hybrid foam. In this study, CNT was used to reinforce the graphene foams. In addition, two different surfactants, known as sodium dodecylbenzene sulphonate (SDBS) and cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), were applied to help CNT dispersion. The π–π interaction was induced by SDBS/CNT, while ionic interaction was derived from CTAB/CNT. To confirm the charge effect with different surfactants, SEM, Zeta-potential, FT-IR, Raman spectroscopy, and compression tests were performed. When using a cationic surfactant, CTAB, compressive modulus, and strength increased due to the formation of relatively strong ionic bonding.

Highlights

Graphene has come into the spotlight owing to its extraordinary properties [1,2,3,4,5]
In some researches on 3D graphene, the template-directed process was used to fabricate 3D graphene architectures. They succeeded in fabricating 3D graphene architectures which grew on a nickel foam, but they needed additional metal foams and struggled to fabricate a film form [12,13]
The mixture of graphite powder and H2SO4 was removed from the ice bath, and 1.0 g of NaNO2 and 3.0 g of KMnO4 were slowly added to the mixture

Summary

Introduction

Graphene has come into the spotlight owing to its extraordinary properties [1,2,3,4,5]. It would not be possible to translate the outstanding properties of 2D graphene at an industrial level. Challenges still exist with the 3D graphene architectures. In some researches on 3D graphene, the template-directed process was used to fabricate 3D graphene architectures. They succeeded in fabricating 3D graphene architectures which grew on a nickel foam, but they needed additional metal foams and struggled to fabricate a film form [12,13]. Another research reported the graphene oxide (GO) coated polyurethane foam [14]. A GO-based polymeric foam was demonstrated to exhibit a large compressive strain where the maximum achieved stress in the range of 0.4 MPa under compression [15]

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Methods

Findings

Conclusion