Yingpeng Wu, Ningbo Yi, Lu Huang, Tengfei Zhang, Shaoli Fang, Huicong Chang, Na Li, Jiyoung Oh, Jae Ah Lee, Mikhail Kozlov, Alin C. Chipara, Humberto Terrones, Peishuang Xiao, Guankui Long, Yi Huang, Fan Zhang, Long Zhang, Xavier Lepro, Carter Haines, Marcio Dias Lima, Nestor Perea Lopez, Lakshmy P. Rajukumar, Ana L. Elias, Simin Feng, Seon Jeong Kim, N.T. Narayanan, Pulickel M. Ajayan, Mauricio Terrones, Ali Aliev, Pengfei Chu, Zhong Zhang, Ray H. Baughman* and Yongsheng Chen*
Nature Commun, 2015, 6: 6141 [ pdf ]
It is a challenge to fabricate graphene bulk materials with properties arising from the nature of individual graphene sheets, and which assemble into monolithic three-dimensional structures. Here we report the scalable self-assembly of randomly oriented graphene sheets into additive-free, essentially homogenous graphene sponge materials that provide a combination of both cork-like and rubber-like properties. These graphene sponges, with densities similar to air, display Poisson’s ratios in all directions that are near-zero and largely strain-independent during reversible compression to giant strains. And at the same time, they function as enthalpic rubbers, which can recover up to 98% compression in air and 90% in liquids, and operate between - 196 and 900C. Furthermore, these sponges provide reversible liquid absorption for hundreds of cycles and then discharge it within seconds, while still providing an effective near-zero Poisson’s ratio.