Making silicananoparticle-covered graphene oxide nanohybrids as general building blocks for large-area superhydrophilic coatings

Abstract

We report a facile strategy to synthesize silica nanoparticles-coated graphene oxide (GO-SiO2) nanohybrids in a water-alcohol mixture at room temperature. AFM observations revealed that silica nanoparticles with ca. 50 nm in size were densely and evenly covered on graphene oxide sheets. Due to the space layer of silica nanoparticles, micro-scale GO-SiO2 hybrid plates could be individually dispersed in water and polar organic solvents, promising good solution-based processibility. The growth process of GO-supported silica is traced by TGA and XRD measurements, showing that 24 hours is enough to achieve a fine cover effect for the disappearance of (002) diffraction peak of GO. Based on the high dense overlaying of silica nanoparticles, up to micro-scale silica sheets with thickness of ca. 8 nm were readily fabricated by burning GO-SiO2 at 650 °C in air. Likewise, a centimeter-scale semitransparent film of silica nanosheets was prepared by calcining a GO-SiO2 film. Interestingly, the GO-SiO2 nanohybrids exhibit excellent hydrophilic nature and can be directly applied as a general kind of building blocks to construct large-area superhydrophilic surfaces on arbitrary substrates (e.g., lotus leaf, ceramic tile and polypropylene) through the simple drop-coating method. Such a coating methodology paves the way for making large-area superhydrophilic surface without extra process treatments and damaging the intrinsic structure of substrates.

Graphene Oxide-Silica Composite Fillers into the Experimental Dental Adhesives for Potential Therapy

“…They were referred to the D band, resulting from a disordered sp3 carbon structure, and the G band representing sp2 ordered crystalline graphite-like structures, respectively. [17,18] …”

Effect of reduced graphene oxide–silica composite in polyaniline: electrode material for high-performance supercapacitor

“…Hence, the contact of the electrode material with the electrolyte plays an important role for the device to display improved capacitance. Incorporation of silica into graphene will increase the hydrophilicity of the reduced graphene oxide-silica composite and facilitate the contact of electrode material with the electrolyte, thus, representing an opportunity for the design of materials with improved performance [4], besides increasing the surface area of the materials [5,6]. So, the incorporation of silica modified reduced graphene oxide in polyaniline is expected to offer better properties viz., mechanical strength, permeability, thermal stability [7], and supercapacitor performance [5,8].…”

Preparation and properties of poly(vinylidene fluoride) nanocomposites blended with graphene oxide coated silica hybrids

“…GO is an active material, it can act as surfactant [8], covalently combined with other materials [9], etc. In recent years, graphene hybrid nano particles appeared [10][11][12], the active GO sheets can be used to modify conventional nanoparticles which were used in polymer nanocomposites. PVDF is a polar polymer with excellent chemical, mechanical and electrical properties [13][14][15].…”