Abstract
Advanced materials with low density and high strength impose transformative impacts in the construction, aerospace, and automobile industries. These materials can be realized by assembling well-designed modular building units (BUs) into interconnected structures. This study uses a hierarchical design strategy to demonstrate a new class of carbon-based, ultralight, strong, and even superelastic closed-cellular network structures. Here, the BUs are prepared by a multiscale design approach starting from the controlled synthesis of functionalized graphene oxide nanosheets at the molecular- and nanoscale, leading to the microfluidic fabrication of spherical solid-shelled bubbles at the microscale. Then, bubbles are strategically assembled into centimeter-scale 3D structures. Subsequently, these structures are transformed into self-interconnected and structurally reinforced closed-cellular network structures with plesiohedral cellular units through post-treatment, resulting in the generation of 3D graphene lattices with rhombic dodecahedral honeycomb structure at the centimeter-scale. The 3D graphene suprastructure concurrently exhibits the Young's modulus above 300 kPa while retaining a light density of 7.7 mg cm−3 and sustaining the elasticity against up to 87% of the compressive strain benefiting from efficient stress dissipation through the complete space-filling closed-cellular network. The method of fabricating the 3D graphene closed-cellular structure opens a new pathway for designing lightweight, strong, and superelastic materials.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 1802997 |
Journal | Advanced Materials |
Volume | 30 |
Issue number | 45 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2018 Nov 8 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
Keywords
- closed-cellular structures
- graphene
- lightweight materials
- microsolid bubbles
- plesiohedra
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Materials Science
- Mechanics of Materials
- Mechanical Engineering