Journal Article

Strong graphene oxide nanocomposites from aqueous hybrid liquid crystals

Yang, Lin, Picken, Stephen J., Fox, Ryan J., Vita, Francesco, van de Watering, Renee, Norder, Ben, Samulski, Edward T., Hegde, Maruti, Madsen, Louis A., Francescangeli, Oriano, Lafont, Ugo, Dingemans, Theo J.

2020

Overview

Combining polymers with small amounts of stiff carbon-based nanofillers such as graphene or graphene oxide is expected to yield low-density nanocomposites with exceptional mechanical properties. However, such nanocomposites have remained elusive because of incompatibilities between fillers and polymers that are further compounded by processing difficulties. Here we report a water-based process to obtain highly reinforced nanocomposite films by simple mixing of two liquid crystalline solutions: a colloidal nematic phase comprised of graphene oxide platelets and a nematic phase formed by a rod-like high-performance aramid. Upon drying the resulting hybrid biaxial nematic phase, we obtain robust, structural nanocomposites reinforced with graphene oxide. Reinforcing polymers with carbon-based nanofillers is non-trivial due to incompatibilities between matrix and filler. Here, the authors report highly reinforced graphene oxide–aramid nanocomposites utilizing a water-based hybrid biaxial nematic mixture.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group,Nature Portfolio
• Subject: 147/135 / 639/166/988 / 639/301/1023/303 / 639/925/918/1053 / Carbon / Crystals / Drying / Fillers / Graphene / Humanities and Social Sciences / Liquid crystals / MATERIALS SCIENCE / Mechanical and structural properties and devices / Mechanical engineering / Mechanical properties / multidisciplinary / Nanocomposites / Platelets (materials) / Polymers / Science / Science (multidisciplinary)