Strong graphene oxide nanocomposites from aqueous hybrid liquid crystals

Maruti Hegde, Lin Yang, Francesco Vita, Renee van de Watering, Ben Norder, Ugo Lafont, Oriano Francescangeli, Stephen J. Picken, Theo J. Dingemans*, More Authors

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

26 Citations (Scopus)
151 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

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.

Original languageEnglish
Article number830
JournalNature Communications
Volume11
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020

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