Direct Creation of Highly Conductive Laser‐Induced Graphene Nanocomposites from Polymer Blends

Abstract

The current state-of-the-art mixing strategies of nanoparticles with insulating polymeric components have only partially utilized the unique electrical conductivity of graphene in nanocomposite systems. Herein, this paper reports a nonmixing method of direct creation of polymer/graphene nanocomposites from polymer blends via laser irradiation. Polycarbonate-laser-induced graphene (PC-LIG) nanocomposite is produced from a PC/polyetherimide (PC/PEI) blend after exposure to commercially available laser scribing with a power of ≈6 W and a speed of ≈2 cm s . Extremely high electrical conductivities are obtained for the PC-LIG nanocomposites, ranging from 26 to 400 S m , depending on the vol% of the starting PEI phase in the blend. To the authors' knowledge, these conductivity values are at least one order of magnitude higher than the values that are previously reported for conductive polymer/graphene nanocomposites prepared via mixing strategies. The comprehensive microscopy and spectroscopy characterizations reveal a complete graphitization of the PEI phase with columnar microstructure embedded in the PC phase.

Physical Sensors Based on Laser-Induced Graphene: A Review

“…(1) Polymers that have been used to form LIG include, but are not limited to Polyimide (PI) [40], Polybenzimidazole (PBM) [78], Polyether ether ketone (PEEK) [79], Polyetherimide (PEI) [80], an aromatic ring in their molecular structure composed of Polycarbonate (PC) [81] as seen in Fig.1a. These polymers have carbon (C) and hydrogen (H), as well as nitrogen (N), and Oxygen(O) atoms.…”

Laser-Induced Graphene Based Flexible Electronic Devices

“…Meanwhile, the conductivity, electrochemical performance [24,27,35,36], biocompatibility [37,38], and hydrophobicity [39][40][41] of LIG also have been systematically studied. A variety of LIG devices have been developed, including sensors [14][15][16][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42], supercapacitors [17,[43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55], nanogenerators [54][55][56][57][58]…”

Laser Synthesized Graphene and Its Applications

“…PEI was also used to make nanocomposites with polycarbonate (PC). Here, a blend of the two polymers was exposed to a CO 2 laser and only PEI was converted to graphene, yielding a nanocomposite [41]. The same process was applied to sulfonated polymers to produce sulfur-doped porous graphene structures [42], which is of particular interest as such polymers are widely used in the technology industry.…”