Millimeter-scale laminar graphene matrix by organic molecule confinement reaction

Abstract

Application of the graphene-based composites in practice was hampered due to the lack of the controllable synthesis strategy. To solve the problem, we envisaged the organic nanodroplets as a nano-reaction environment to obtain the organic nanoframes by photo-polymerization, then to directly graphitize for the graphene-based materials. In such strategy, two-dimensional laminar matrix of graphene nanosheets (2DLMG) was obtained with millimeter-scale surface, which rendered the matrix high electron conductivity. Thanks to the confinement effect of the nanodroplets, the composited materials were homogeneously dispersed in the organic nanoframes. Then, the organic nanoframes converted directly to 2DLMG-based composites after calcination. In this paper, the transformation from organic nanoframes to 2DLMG has been revealed in detail by comprehensive analyses from SEM, XRD and XPS. To demonstrate the versatility of 2DLMG, the superiority in lithium ion battery has been indicated by the high specific capacity (565 mA h g−1), high cycling performance after 500 cycles and the 100% retention capacity in rate measurement. For the synthesis of the composites, Sn nanoparticles and γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticles were distributed in 2DLMG without the aggregation with high loading. The proposed organic molecule confinement reaction strategy was expected to point out a promising direction for the preparation of graphene-based materials.