Recently, two researches titled Laser-Induced Freestanding Graphene Papers: A New Route of Scalable Fabrication with Tunable Morphologies and Properties for Multifunctional Devices and Structures by Wang Yanan, a doctoral student enrolled in 2017 and Hybrid Spray-coating, Laser-scribing and Ink-dispensing of Graphene Sensors/Arrays with Tunable Piezoresistivity for in situ Monitoring of Composites by Wang Yong, a postgraduate enrolled in 2016 were published in Small and Carbon respectively, under the guidance of Prof. Luo Sida who is the corresponding author of the two articles.
Fig.1 Concept, preparation, demonstration, and microstructures of LIGP
As an important architecture of 2D layered carbon, Graphene Paper (GP) has a variety of intriguing properties, including self-supportiveness, robustness, lightweight and high porosity, as well as excellent electrical and thermal conductivity. Therefore it can be applied in a wide range of fields, for instance, flexible electronics, intelligent structure, biomedicine. The traditional productions of GP majorly rely on solution-phase assembly, whose high cost, intricate technology and inefficient production limit its preparation and application in a large scale. To solve the above issues, the team used laser-induced graphene (LIG) technology to produce freestanding large-dimension GP through laser-induced graphene (LIG) for the first time, with polyimide (PI) paper as carbon source and CO2 as laser source.
According to the research, the unique spatial arrangement of PI paper is fiber network with free spaces, which is critical for high-efficient absorption of photothermal energy, formation of graphitized structure without intense shape distortion, and the continuous large-dimension production of GP. As is shown in Fig.1, the size of laser-induced graphene paper (LIGP) is up to 14000 cm2, which to our knowledge is among the largest GPs fabricated in lab. Additionally, considering the flexibility and robustness of GP, all kinds of complex structures can be realized by laser manufacturing for a second time, and it can also be further integrated and manufactured with resin, silica gel, composite materials and other advanced industrial materials.
Processing-structure-property relationship has been systematically studied to advice people the preparation of LIGP with tunable mechanical, electrical, piezoresistive, joule-heating, supercapacitive, and hydrophobic characteristics, which are advantageous for assembling multifunctional devices and structures in Fig.2 (e.g., human/robotic motion capture, liquid sensing, water–oil separation, anti-bacterium, and fire retardant/deicing, self-sensing, low-energy advanced aeronautical polymer matrix composites). The paper demonstrated a new fabrication of freestanding GPs applied by LIG technology as well as its possibility for cost-efficient and large-scale preparation, tunable structures and properties, and multifunctional appliances, which may expedite its commercialization, roll-to-roll manufacturing in the future.
Fig.2 Tunable structures and properities, and multifunctional appliances of laser-induced GPs
Prof. Luo Sida mainly engages in research on micro-/nano-structured sensors, flexible materials, smart structures and devices, composites and so on. In recent years, his researches have been published in Advanced Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, Small, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Carbon, Composite Structures, etc.
The papers are available at https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.201802350, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carbon.2018.07.014
Reported by Wen Lifang
Edited by Wen Zhiming
Translated by Zhao Yue
