Investigation of mechanical and electrical properties of 3D porous graphene hydrogels

Abstract

As a 3D porous carbon monolith, graphene hydrogel (GH) has attracted increasing attention in various applications like energy storage devices, pollutant adsorption, catalysis, and tissue engineering. Among different synthesis methods of GHs, hydrothermal reduction demonstrates an advantage over others as it is a water-only simply routine producing reduced graphene oxide (rGO) with less impurity. Self-assembly and reduction play an important role in determining the final structure and properties of GHs. However there is a lack of understanding of the nature of the linkage (covalent or π-π stacking) between graphene sheets that causes the hydrogel formation and how self-assembly affects the properties. In this study, we have investigated the influence of the reduction degree and the bonding mechanism of graphene sheets on morphology, and mechanical and electrical properties. The effects of pH value on self-assembly of GHs, in terms of electrostatic repulsion force between GO sheets were examined