An effective in situ reduction strategy assisted by supercritical fluids for the preparation of graphene - polymer composites

Abstract

The chemical/thermal in situ reduction of graphene oxide (GO) in GO-polymer composite is consistently challenged by the presence of undesirable chemical residues/temperature degradation restriction of the polymer. In order to tackle this problem, an effective in situ supercritical fluid reduction strategy comprising of supercritical CO2 and ethanol binary system under N-2 atmosphere was developed by stepwise comparison of different reduction methods for graphene oxide-polyvinyl alcohol (GO-PVA) composite films. The resulting rGO-PVA composite films comprising of 10 wt% rGO showed an electrical conductivity of 51.7 S/m-and Young's modulus of 3.1 GPa. Different weight loadings of GO in the polymer composite films were found to affect the electrical and mechanical properties of the resulting rGO-polymer films. The in situ supercritical fluid reduction strategy was demonstrated further for successfully obtaining rGO-polyethylene glycol films (rGO-PEG) and rGO-PVA fiber. (C) 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd.