Macroscopic assembly of flexible and strong graphene fibers

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1655741 (Table of Contents)

Graphene fibers have great potential in future wearable electronics due to their promising thermal and electrical properties. However, fiber brittleness limits their implementation while the researchers are still seeking for easily scalable and eco-friendly production methods. Here we propose a green and continuous wet-spinning assembly approach to continuously spin flexible graphene oxide (GO) fibers. Highly stable aqueous GO suspensions up to 40 mg/mL are achieved and GO fibers are spun from highly oriented liquid crystals through customized continuous fiber production line. GO fibers with specific ultimate tensile strength of 7 N/tex show strain to failure (%) of 10%; subsequent NaBH4 chemical reduction gives graphene fibers with electrical conductivity of 214 S cm-1. The scalable production presented here facilitates flexible strong and electrically conductive graphene fibers, which have emerged as promising graphene based electronic textiles and sensors.