Facile Fabrication of Three-Dimensional Graphene Foam/Poly(dimethylsiloxane) Composites and Their Potential Application as Strain Sensor

Abstract

A three-dimensional (3D) graphene foam (GF)/poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) composite was fabricated by infiltrating PDMS into 3D GF, which was synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) with nickel foam as template. The electrical properties of the GF/PDMS composite under bending stress were investigated, indicating the resistance of the GF/PDMS composite was increased with the bending curvature. To improve the bending sensitivity of the GF/PDMS composite, a thin layer of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) was introduced as substrate to form double-layer GF/PDMS-PET composite, whose measurements showed that the resistance of the GF/PDMS-PET composite was still increased when bended to the side of PET, whereas its resistance would be decreased when bended to the side of GF. For both cases, the absolute value of the relative variation of electrical resistance was increased with the bending curvature. More importantly, the relative variation of electrical resistance for double-layer GF/PDMS-PET composite can be up to six times higher than single-layer GF/PDMS composite for the same bending curvature. These observations were further supported by the principle of mechanics of material. The 3D GF/PDMS-PET composite also has higher flexibility and environment stability and can be utilized as a strain sensor with high sensitivity, which can find important applications in real-time monitoring of buildings, such as a bridge, dam, and high-speed railway.

Binary Synergistic Sensitivity Strengthening of Bioinspired Hierarchical Architectures based on Fragmentized Reduced Graphene Oxide Sponge and Silver Nanoparticles for Strain Sensors and Beyond

“…Importantly, compared with other strategies to construct percolation networks, such as CVD, template‐assisted approach, and filling microchannel with liquid metals, our approach is based on solution‐processable graphene at room and mild conditions, and it can be readily scaled up. Although GS has been prepared by CVD or template‐assisted approaches, CVD is high‐cost and time‐consuming, while template‐assisted approach requires complex etching processes to eliminate templates. The sol–gel approach in our work is significantly advantageous than the previous methods in terms of fabrication complexity, production costs, and scalability.…”

Simultaneous Detection of Static and Dynamic Signals by a Flexible Sensor Based on 3D Graphene

“…Ni foam was used to catalyze the graphene growth [20]. First, the nickel foam was cut to a desired size.…”

“…In our previous studies [20], only the static bending and tensile test signal is reported. The piezo-resistive stain sensors mostly detect signal by mechanical stimuli owing to its sensing mechanism based on the change in resistance due to mechanical deformation.…”

Highly Ordered 3D Porous Graphene Sponge for Wearable Piezoresistive Pressure Sensor Applications

“…Meanwhile, the templates need to be removed to leave porous 3D GSs for applications in flexible energy‐storage devices and strain sensors. CVD is another common method for the synthesis of high‐quality GSs that exhibit high conductivity, but this technique it is time‐consuming, costly, and leads to uncontrolled pore sizes . Different from these methods, the self‐assembly process usually starts from graphene oxide (GO), which combines the many oxygen‐containing groups on the surface of the GO sheet.…”