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Effect of interfacial features on the mechanical and electrical properties of rGO/Al composites

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Abstract

This study investigates the effect of interfacial features on the mechanical and electrical properties of reduced graphene oxide (rGO)/aluminum (Al) composites. The composites were fabricated using a hybrid process that includes chemical and mechanical methods. First, GO was uniformly dispersed on the surface of Al powder via a solution process. A strong interface was formed between GO and Al via several chemical bonds by using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as an organic binder during the solution process. Then, GO was thermally reduced to rGO, wherein the interfacial features were varied according to the atmosphere (vacuum or H2(10%)/N2(90%) mixed gas). Subsequently, rGO was mechanically embedded and further dispersed within soft Al powder through the plastic deformation of Al. Vacuum was found to be more effective than the mixed gas at removing functional groups containing oxygen in GO and therefore generated a tighter interface. As a result, the composites containing rGO that were reduced under vacuum showed higher strength and lower ductility compared with those reduced under the mixed gas. Conversely, the interfacial features rarely affected the electrical conductivity of the composites because the electrical conductivity of rGO was considerably lower than that of Al. Consequently, compared with their monolithic counterparts, the composites containing only 0.2 vol% rGO showed a 374-MPa yield strength without a significant loss of electrical conductivity, thereby demonstrating their potential feasibility in electrical and electronic applications.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea, funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2009-0093814 and NRF-2015R1D1A1A01060718), and by Leading Foreign Research Institute Recruitment Program through NRF, funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (MSIP) (2013K1A4A3055679).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Advanced Materials Engineering, Kookmin University, 77 Jeongneung-ro, Seoungbuk-gu, Seoul, 136-702, Republic of Korea

    Daeyoung Kim, Seungjin Nam, Aeran Roh, Seonghyeon Yoo & Hyunjoo Choi

  2. Department of Material Science and Engineering, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, 75080, USA

    Manuel Quevedo-Lopez

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  1. Daeyoung Kim
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  2. Seungjin Nam
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Correspondence to Hyunjoo Choi.

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Kim, D., Nam, S., Roh, A. et al. Effect of interfacial features on the mechanical and electrical properties of rGO/Al composites. J Mater Sci 52, 12001–12012 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-017-1282-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-017-1282-4

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