SMA-Assisted Exfoliation of Graphite by Microfluidization for Efficient and Large-Scale Production of High-Quality Graphene
In this paper, the sodium salt of styrene-maleic anhydride copolymer (SMA) was used as a stabilizer in the process of graphite exfoliation to few-layer graphene using the technique of microfluidization in water. This method is simple, scalable, and cost-effective, and it produces graphene at concent...
Main Authors: | , , , |
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Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Published: |
MDPI AG
2019-11-01
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Series: | Nanomaterials |
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2079-4991/9/12/1653 |
Summary: | In this paper, the sodium salt of styrene-maleic anhydride copolymer (SMA) was used as a stabilizer in the process of graphite exfoliation to few-layer graphene using the technique of microfluidization in water. This method is simple, scalable, and cost-effective, and it produces graphene at concentrations as high as 0.522 mg mL<sup>−1</sup>. The generated high-quality graphene consists of few-layer sheets with a uniform size of less than 1 μm. The obtained graphene was uniformly dispersed and tightly integrated into a polyamide 66 (PA66) matrix to create high-performance multifunctional polymer nanocomposites. The tensile strength and thermal conductivity of 0.3 and 0.5 wt% EG/PA66 composites were found to be ~32.6% and ~28.8% greater than the corresponding values calculated for pure PA66, respectively. This confirms that the new protocol of liquid phase exfoliation of graphite has excellent potential for use in the industrial-scale production of high-quality graphene for numerous applications. |
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ISSN: | 2079-4991 |