Elsevier

Carbon

Volume 48, Issue 12, October 2010, Pages 3340-3345
Carbon

Graphene oxide as dyestuffs for the creation of electrically conductive fabrics

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carbon.2010.05.016Get rights and content

Abstract

Graphene oxide (GO) was immobilized on the surfaces of acrylic yarns through a conventional dyeing approach. The GO dyed yarns and/or the fabric were immersed in an aqueous sodium hydrosulfite solution at around 363 K for 30 min, which converted the GO into graphene. The graphene created a graphitic-coloured and electrically conductive thin layer over each yarn in the fabric. Data on the electrical conductance of the yarns versus temperature (30–300 K) fit well with the so-called fluctuation-induced tunneling model, which suggests that the graphene layer belongs to a continuously interconnected network. Values of the electrical resistivity ranged from 102 to 1010 Ohm/cm, as verified by the content of graphene in the conductive layer.

Introduction

Graphene oxide (GO) is heavily oxygenated graphene bearing hydroxyl and epoxide functional groups on the basal planes, and carbonyl and carboxyl groups at the edges [1], [2]. Although GO was first introduced in 1859 [3], it has characteristics which have attracted a great deal of attention in recent years. First, GO belongs to a class of truly sheet-shaped molecules (sometimes ions). A single GO sheet (the fully exfoliated GO), has a length or breadth that is typically larger than micrometers, while its thickness is only one or a few atoms thick. Therefore, it is possible to cover or overlap a substance with an atom-thick molecular sheet. Second, GO is highly dispersible in both aqueous and polar organic solvents; our studies found that the solubility in water or dimethyl sulfoxide was as high as 2.0 wt.% [4]. Compared with carbon nanotubes (CNTs), it is easier to mix GO with other matrixes so that the GO is ideally dispersed. Third, GO can convert to graphene through chemical reductions or with heating. Graphene has many unusual properties. For example, graphene has high in-plane thermal (∼3000 W/mK) and electrical conductivity (∼104 Ω−1 cm−1) and excellent mechanical stiffness (∼1060 GPa) [5], which enable us to create a broad new class of high-performance materials. Moreover, GO is commonly produced by exfoliating graphite, an abundant material, through simple chemical reactions [6], [7], [8], [9]; thus, GO has the advantages of low cost and plentiful supply of the starting material.

The applications of GO and/or the reduced GO (namely, graphene) is close to unlimited [10]; however, to realize certain applications, the micro × micro sized molecular sheets need to be linked into macroscopic networks. Two typical strategic starting points have been used for physically linking CNTs, compounding and self assembling. These two essential techniques have also been demonstrated for GO. In a compounding procedure, desirable binders (commonly polymers) are used to glue GO into interconnected macroscopic networks. With this process, chemically functionalized GO (for example, GO after being gratified with compounds having isocyanate groups) was dispersible even in N,N-dimethylfomamide (DMF). This led to the production of three styrene-based composited polymers (polystyrene, acrylonitrile–butadiene-styrene rubber, and styrene-butadiene rubber), with GO being intimately mixed into the matrixes through a mixing of the solutions [11]. After the GO has been converted into graphene by dimethylhydrazine, the GO-compounded polymers were electrically conductive.

Conversely, with the self-assembling method, thin layers of GO can be produced without the need to add binders. In other words, it is possible to obtain a thin layer having GO for its entire constituted elements. For example, methods based on the Langmuir–Blodgett assembly of GO were capable of producing the thinnest layer possible, with a thickness equal to a single GO [12], [13]. GO layers with this thickness are optically transparent; this allows the production of transparent electrically conductive films by chemically reducing the GO into graphene.

Despite the existence of these methods, the development of a new method for producing graphene-based functional materials in industrial quantities remains a large challenge. In this paper, we describe a novel methodology for the massive production of graphene-based networks. This method is established using GO as dyestuffs. GO was immobilized on the surface of each yarn in a fabric through a conventional dyeing approach. The GO dyed fabrics were then chemically reduced. Graphitic-coloured and electrically conductive fabrics with excellent wash fastness were obtained. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the use of GO as dyestuffs for the creation of graphene-based networks over the surface of fabric.

Section snippets

Preparation of GO

GO was obtained from natural graphite (SP-1, Bay Carbon), using a modified Hummers and Offeman method [6]. In a typical treatment, 100 g of graphite powder and 20 g of sodium cholate were mixed in 1000 mL of deionized water. The mixture was then milled using a continuously operating bead-milling system, at 40 Hz for 30 min. The wet-milled graphite, after being freeze-dried, was used as the starting material for preparing the GO with the modified Hummers and Offeman method. Briefly, 100 g of the

Results and discussion

GO was obtained from graphite powders (Bay carbon, SP-1 graphite) using Hummers and Offeman’s method [6]. Prior to the chemical oxidation reactions, the graphite powders were milled using a wet-milling system to break the particle sizes down to few micrometers. The wet-milled graphite, after being freeze-dried, was the starting material for preparing the GO using Hummers and Offeman’s method. AFM was used to evaluate the morphologies of the resultant GO. The apparent heights of the observed GO

Conclusions

We demonstrated experimentally that soft, durable, and large-sized graphene-based networks can be obtained by immobilizing chemically reduced graphenes on the individual surfaces of fabric yarn or fabric fiber. We used a traditional dyeing approach with the graphene oxide as the dyestuffs. The directly employing graphene oxide in dyeing opens new possibilities for the massive production of graphene-based functioning materials, and thus their use in a variety of industrial applications.

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