Interlayer Separation in Graphene Paper Comprising Electrochemically Exfoliated Graphene.

Dang Du Nguyen,Soomook Lim,Ji Won Suk,Taegyeong Lim

doi:10.3390/nano11040865

Abstract

The emergence of graphene paper comprising well-stacked graphene flakes has promoted the application of graphene-based materials in diverse fields such as energy storage devices, membrane desalination, and actuators. The fundamental properties of graphene paper such as mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties are critical to the design and fabrication of paper-based devices. In this study, the interlayer interactions in graphene paper were investigated by double cantilever beam (DCB) fracture tests. Graphene papers fabricated by flow-directed stacking of electrochemically exfoliated few-layer graphene flakes were mechanically separated into two parts, which generated force-displacement responses of the DCB sample. The analysis based on fracture mechanics revealed that the interlayer separation energy of the graphene paper was 9.83 ± 0.06 J/m2. The results provided a fundamental understanding of the interfacial properties of graphene papers, which will be useful for developing paper-based devices with mechanical integrity.

Highlights

IntroductionGraphene has attracted considerable interest from researchers in academia and industry owing to its exceptional mechanical, electrical, optical, and thermal properties [1,2,3,4,5]
Graphene has attracted considerable interest from researchers in academia and industry owing to its exceptional mechanical, electrical, optical, and thermal properties [1,2,3,4,5].These properties facilitate the utilization of graphene in various advanced applications, such as energy storage devices, nanoelectronics, optoelectronics, nanocomposites, and flexible devices [6,7,8,9,10,11,12]
Grapheneflakes flakeswere wereobtained obtainedby byelectrochemical electrochemicalexfoliation exfoliation graphwere ofof graphite; ite; thereafter, graphene papers were fabricated via vacuum filtration of the obtained graphene flakes

Summary

Introduction

Graphene has attracted considerable interest from researchers in academia and industry owing to its exceptional mechanical, electrical, optical, and thermal properties [1,2,3,4,5] These properties facilitate the utilization of graphene in various advanced applications, such as energy storage devices, nanoelectronics, optoelectronics, nanocomposites, and flexible devices [6,7,8,9,10,11,12]. High-quality and stable single-layer graphene on SiO2 can be obtained via the mechanical exfoliation of bulk graphite using scotch tape [1] This technique is not suitable for mass production due to various issues such as low lateral sizes and random positions of the graphene flakes; in addition, it is difficult to control the number of layers of the graphene flakes.

Methods

Results

Conclusion