Fabrication of non-oxidized graphene flake based aerogel and its applications

Abstract

Application of graphene aerogels as in various applications has shown significant results owing to the excellent intrinsic properties of graphene and structural advantage. Development of graphene aerogel with better property to further improve the corresponding application remain as challenges to current days. Although many researches have achieved by controlling the structure of graphene aerogels, there have been a few attempts to enhance the properties by using better quality precursor graphene flakes. This is due to the difficulties arousing when assembling high quality graphene flakes that normally show highly hydrophobic and agglomerative nature in aqueous media. Herein, assembly of high quality non-oxidized graphene aerogel (NOGA) is demonstrated by using ice templating method which could effectively control the microstructure and finely tune the characteristics of the resulting graphene aerogel. This research includes importance of incorporating NOGFs as the precursor of graphene aerogel and also controlling the microstructure. The significance of the NOGAs will be further demonstrated by applying as polymer composite filler for mechanical and electrical property enhancement, also as catalyst support for improved oxygen evolution and reduction reaction activities.