Open AccessThe preparation of the poly(vinyl alcohol)/graphene nanocomposites with low percolation threshold and high electrical conductivity by using the large-area reduced graphene oxide sheets
Author(s) -
Tiannan Zhou,
Xiaodong Qi,
Qiang Fu
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
express polymer letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.695
H-Index - 72
ISSN - 1788-618X
DOI - 10.3144/expresspolymlett.2013.72
Subject(s) - graphene , materials science , vinyl alcohol , percolation threshold , oxide , nanocomposite , percolation (cognitive psychology) , electrical resistivity and conductivity , graphene oxide paper , composite material , nanotechnology , polymer , neuroscience , biology , metallurgy , engineering , electrical engineering
We report a method to prepare the poly(vinyl alcohol)/reduced graphene oxide (PVA/rGO) nanocomposites with low percolation threshold and high electrical conductivity by using the large-area reduced graphene oxide (LrGO) sheets. The large-area graphene oxide (LGO) sheets are expected to overlap better with each other and form the continuous GO network in PVA matrix than small-area graphene oxide (SGO). During the thermal reduction process, the LGO sheets are easily restored and improve the electrical conductivity of nanocomposites due to their low damage level of conjugate-structure. As a result, the percolation threshold of PVA/LrGO nanocomposites is ~0.189 wt% lower than present reports (0.5~0.7 wt%). At the LrGO content of 0.7 wt%, the electrical conductivity of PVA/LrGO nanocomposites reaches 6.3•10–3 S/m. Besides that, this method only takes 15~30 min to reduce the PVA/GO nanocomposites effectively