Highly Crystalline Graphene Fibers with Superior Strength and Conductivities by Plasticization Spinning

Abstract

Graphene fiber (GF), a macroscopic one-dimensional assembly of individual graphene sheets, promises both extraordinary mechanical performance and superior multifunctionality. However, the properties of graphene fiber are still limited due to the unfavorable crystalline structures, especially induced by wrinkled conformations of graphene. A plasticization spinning strategy is presented to achieve GF with both high mechanical strength and electrical/ thermal conductivity. Adjusting the interlayer space from 1.2 to 1.8 nm by intercalating proper plasticizers to adjacent graphene oxide sheets enables graphene oxide fibers to achieve a 580% enhanced deformable plasticity. Such a plasticization spinning flattens random graphene wrinkles, and regulates sheets with high order and stacking density, thereby forming large crystallite domains. The GF exhibits all around record performance including mechanical strength (3.4 GPa), electrical conductivity (1.19 × 10 6 S m −1), and thermal conductivity (1480 W m −1 K −1). The optimally crystalline GF with the integration of benchmark overall properties and scalable fabrication is likely to be attractive and competitive in future industrial applications.

Graphene Fiber‐Based Wearable Supercapacitors: Recent Advances in Design, Construction, and Application

“…To reinforce the stretching effect, Gao and co‐workers developed a plasticization spinning strategy to render GFs with enhanced plasticity. [ 75 ] Plasticizers were intercalated to adjacent GO sheets to adjust the interlayer space, and a high deformable plasticity of 580% was obtained. The high plasticity enables gradually stretching GO fiber and realigning GO sheets along the fiber direction under constant tension.…”

“…Reproduced with permission. [ 75 ] Copyright 2020, Wiley‐VCH GmbH. b) In situ SAXS patterns taken from GO fluid at different locations during an elongational flow.…”

Multi-Scale Structure–Mechanical Property Relations of Graphene-Based Layer Materials

“…By mimicking the microstructures of nacre, Cheng and co-authors prepared super tough yet strong graphene fibers via sequential interfacial interactions [ 136 , 137 , 138 ]. More recently, Li et al [ 37 ] presented a plasticization spinning method that flattens random graphene wrinkles and regulates sheets with high order and stacking density, thereby forming large crystallite domains and demonstrating a new record of strength for GFs up to 3.4 GPa.…”

“…Further assembly of GLNs can form the graphene-based layer materials (GLMs), whose mechanical properties dependent on not only the properties of GLNs, but also multi-scale assembling structures such as the wrinkles, orientation of GLNs, etc. Three kinds of macroscopic graphene assemblies, namely graphene papers (GPs) [ 11 , 36 ], graphene fibers (GFs) [ 12 , 37 ], and graphene aerogels (GAs) [ 38 , 39 ] have mostly been studied. The GPs and GFs are obtained with the GLNs assembled in a compacted manner, while the GAs possess cellular structures, but their cell wall consists of GLNs.…”

Self-assembled graphene-based microfibers with eclectic optical properties

“…In particular, graphene microfibers (GMFs) have been exploited in a wide variety of applications ranging from electronic textiles 12 and flexible supercapacitors 13 to environmental remediation 11 . To date, lots of efforts have been intensively focused on the preparation of GMFs by various methods including wet-spinning, dry-spinning, and plasticization spinning of GO liquid crystals 5 , 14 – 16 , baking of GO dispersion in a sealed pipeline 17 , scrolling of GO films 18 , and microfluidic 3D printing technology 19 , 20 . However, the vast majority of attention have been paid to reinforcing their mechanical and electrical properties 20 and there has been already no previous evidence of GMFs with notable optical features.…”