A dense graphene monolith with poloxamer prefunctionalization enabling aqueous redispersion to obtain solubilized graphene sheets

• 作者: Chen Ye Cheng-Te Lin Dan Dai Fan Zhang He Li Huifang Sun Jing Kong Jinhong Yu Ke Yang Li Fu Minghui Yang Nan Jiang Shiyu Du Weitao Su Wen Dai Xue Tan
• 来源期刊: 中国化学快报（英文版）
• 年，卷（期）: 2020,（9）
• 所属期刊栏目: Communications
• 页码范围: 2507-2511
• 页数: 5页
• 语种: 英文

摘要

The realization of good aqueous dispersibility of commercial graphene products composed of exfoliated graphene sheets is of significance for downstream applications. However, the tap density of commercial graphene powder is quite low (0.03–0.1 kg/m3), meaning that 1 kg graphene powder occupies about 10–30 m3 in volume during transportation. And, the available content of commercial graphene dispersion/slurry in aqueous medium cannot exceed 5 wt％, although the density is high (≈1050 kg/m3). In this work, a graphene monolith was prepared by oven-drying of graphene sheets prefunctionalized with poloxamer surfactants. Our graphene monoliths not only have a high density (1500 kg/m3) and high graphene content (≈10 wt％), but also a full capability to be completely redispersed (≈100％) in water by bath sonication to obtain solubilized graphene sheets, whose lateral size and thickness are unchanged compared to as-exfoliated ones. Moreover, a simple empirical method was proposed to predict the redispersion capability of graphene monoliths using different poloxamers by contact angle measure-ments. Our results provide a universal approach to make exfoliated graphene-based products with better downstream availability and lower transportation cost.