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Rheology and microstructure of dilute graphene oxide suspension

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Abstract

Graphene and graphene oxide are potential candidates as nanofluids for thermal management applications. Here, we investigate the rheological properties and intrinsic viscosity of aqueous suspension of graphene and use the measured intrinsic viscosity to determine the aspect ratio of graphene oxide. Dilute suspension of graphene oxide (0.05 to 0.5 mg/mL) exhibits a shear thinning behavior at low shear rates followed by a shear-independent region that starts at shear rate between 5 and 100/s depending on the concentration. This shear thinning behavior becomes more pronounced with the increase of particle loading. Moreover, AFM imaging of the dried graphene oxide indicates the evolution of irregular and thin low fractal aggregates of 0.3–1.8 nm thickness at lower concentrations to oblate compact structures of 1–18 nm thickness of nanosheets at higher concentration. These observations elucidate the microstructure growth mechanisms of graphene oxide in multiphase systems, which are important for nanofluids applications and for dispersing graphene and graphene oxide in composite materials. The suspension has a very high intrinsic viscosity of 1661 due to the high graphene oxide aspect ratio. Based on this intrinsic viscosity, we predict graphene oxide aspect ratio of 2445. While the classical Einstein and Batchelor models underestimate the relative viscosity of graphene oxide suspension, Krieger–Dougherty prediction is in a good agreement with the experimental measurement.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge Dr. Tewfik Souier for his assistance with AFM imaging.

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Author notes

  1. Ahmed A. Abdala

    Present address: Department of Chemical Engineering and Petroleum Refining, Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University, Suez, Egypt

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Nano and Microfluidics, Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE

    Waka Tesfai, Pawan Singh & Youssef Shatilla

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, The Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi, UAE

    Muhammad Z. Iqbal & Ahmed A. Abdala

Authors
  1. Waka Tesfai
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  2. Pawan Singh
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  3. Youssef Shatilla
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  4. Muhammad Z. Iqbal
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  5. Ahmed A. Abdala
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Correspondence to Ahmed A. Abdala.

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Tesfai, W., Singh, P., Shatilla, Y. et al. Rheology and microstructure of dilute graphene oxide suspension. J Nanopart Res 15, 1989 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-013-1989-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-013-1989-3

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