Super-elastic and fatigue resistant carbon material with lamellar multi-arch microstructure

Low-density compressible materials enable various applications but are often hindered by structure-derived fatigue failure, weak elasticity with slow recovery speed and large energy dissipation. Here we demonstrate a carbon material with microstructure-derived super-elasticity and high fatigue resistance achieved by designing a hierarchical lamellar architecture composed of thousands of microscale arches that serve as elastic units. The obtained monolithic carbon material can rebound a steel ball in spring-like fashion with fast recovery speed (∼580 mm s−1), and demonstrates complete recovery and small energy dissipation (∼0.2) in each compress-release cycle, even under 90% strain. Particularly, the material can maintain structural integrity after more than 106 cycles at 20% strain and 2.5 × 105 cycles at 50% strain. This structural material, although constructed using an intrinsically brittle carbon constituent, is simultaneously super-elastic, highly compressible and fatigue resistant to a degree even greater than that of previously reported compressible foams mainly made from more robust constituents.

[1]  R. F. Ker,et al.  The spring in the arch of the human foot , 1987, Nature.

[2]  Chao Gao,et al.  Multifunctional, Ultra‐Flyweight, Synergistically Assembled Carbon Aerogels , 2013, Advanced materials.

[3]  I-Wei Chen,et al.  A New Tubular Graphene Form of a Tetrahedrally Connected Cellular Structure , 2015, Advanced materials.

[4]  Shuhong Yu,et al.  Scalable template synthesis of resorcinol-formaldehyde/graphene oxide composite aerogels with tunable densities and mechanical properties. , 2015, Angewandte Chemie.

[5]  Omkaram Nalamasu,et al.  Fatigue resistance of aligned carbon nanotube arrays under cyclic compression. , 2007, Nature nanotechnology.

[6]  Sergei O. Kucheyev,et al.  Mechanically robust and electrically conductive carbon nanotube foams , 2009 .

[7]  Sirong Li,et al.  Self‐Assembly and Embedding of Nanoparticles by In Situ Reduced Graphene for Preparation of a 3D Graphene/Nanoparticle Aerogel , 2011, Advanced materials.

[8]  Robert C. Maher,et al.  Mesoscale assembly of chemically modified graphene into complex cellular networks , 2014, Nature Communications.

[9]  Chang Yu,et al.  Boric acid-mediated B,N-codoped chitosan-derived porous carbons with a high surface area and greatly improved supercapacitor performance. , 2015, Nanoscale.

[10]  I. V. Grigorieva,et al.  Square ice in graphene nanocapillaries , 2015, Nature.

[11]  R. Ritchie,et al.  Bioinspired large-scale aligned porous materials assembled with dual temperature gradients , 2015, Science Advances.

[12]  Yang Liu,et al.  Multifunctional nitrogen-doped graphene nanoribbon aerogels for superior lithium storage and cell culture. , 2016, Nanoscale.

[13]  B. Liu,et al.  Mechanically strong and highly conductive graphene aerogel and its use as electrodes for electrochemical power sources , 2011 .

[14]  R. Dauskardt,et al.  An ultra-sensitive resistive pressure sensor based on hollow-sphere microstructure induced elasticity in conducting polymer film , 2014, Nature Communications.

[15]  N. J. Mills,et al.  Finite Element Models for the Viscoelasticity of Open-Cell Polyurethane Foam , 2006 .

[16]  Youngseok Oh,et al.  Graphene coating makes carbon nanotube aerogels superelastic and resistant to fatigue. , 2012, Nature nanotechnology.

[17]  Rong Xiang,et al.  Three‐Dimensional Carbon Nanotube Sponge‐Array Architectures with High Energy Dissipation , 2014, Advanced materials.

[18]  L. Valdevit,et al.  Ultralight Metallic Microlattices , 2011, Science.

[19]  Gang Wang,et al.  Freeze-drying for sustainable synthesis of nitrogen doped porous carbon cryogel with enhanced supercapacitor and lithium ion storage performance , 2015, Nanotechnology.

[20]  Han Hu,et al.  Ultralight and Highly Compressible Graphene Aerogels , 2013, Advanced materials.

[21]  D. Milkie,et al.  Carbon Nanotube Aerogels , 2007 .

[22]  Xingyi Huang,et al.  Mechanically Flexible and Multifunctional Polymer‐Based Graphene Foams for Elastic Conductors and Oil‐Water Separators , 2013, Advanced materials.

[23]  Fan Zhang,et al.  Three-dimensionally bonded spongy graphene material with super compressive elasticity and near-zero Poisson’s ratio , 2015, Nature Communications.

[24]  Jing Zhuang,et al.  Noble-metal-promoted three-dimensional macroassembly of single-layered graphene oxide. , 2010, Angewandte Chemie.

[25]  Amit Kumar,et al.  Ultralight multiwalled carbon nanotube aerogel. , 2010, ACS nano.

[26]  B. Ding,et al.  Ultralight nanofibre-assembled cellular aerogels with superelasticity and multifunctionality , 2014, Nature Communications.

[27]  Xiaoming Yang,et al.  Well-dispersed chitosan/graphene oxide nanocomposites. , 2010, ACS applied materials & interfaces.

[28]  Andre K. Geim,et al.  The rise of graphene. , 2007, Nature materials.

[29]  K. Hata,et al.  Carbon Nanotubes with Temperature-Invariant Viscoelasticity from –196° to 1000°C , 2010, Science.

[30]  Zikang Tang,et al.  Carbon Nanotube Sponge‐Array Tandem Composites with Extended Energy Absorption Range , 2013, Advanced materials.

[31]  Alexandra M. Golobic,et al.  Highly compressible 3D periodic graphene aerogel microlattices , 2015, Nature Communications.

[32]  Shuhong Yu,et al.  A shape-memory scaffold for macroscale assembly of functional nanoscale building blocks , 2014 .

[33]  Han Hu,et al.  Highly Stretchable and Ultrasensitive Strain Sensor Based on Reduced Graphene Oxide Microtubes-Elastomer Composite. , 2015, ACS applied materials & interfaces.

[34]  Hongwei Zhu,et al.  Carbon Nanotube Sponges , 2010, Advanced materials.

[35]  B. Cao,et al.  Green synthesis of carbon nanotube–graphene hybrid aerogels and their use as versatile agents for water purification , 2012 .

[36]  Yuefeng Su,et al.  Ultralight conducting polymer/carbon nanotube composite aerogels , 2011 .

[37]  Zhu Zhu,et al.  Macroscopic-scale template synthesis of robust carbonaceous nanofiber hydrogels and aerogels and their applications. , 2012, Angewandte Chemie.

[38]  Y. Qian,et al.  Ultralight, high-surface-area, multifunctional graphene-based aerogels from self-assembly of graphene oxide and resol , 2014 .

[39]  R. Ruoff,et al.  Graphene and Graphene Oxide: Synthesis, Properties, and Applications , 2010, Advanced materials.

[40]  Dan Li,et al.  Biomimetic superelastic graphene-based cellular monoliths , 2012, Nature Communications.

[41]  J. Kysar,et al.  Measurement of the Elastic Properties and Intrinsic Strength of Monolayer Graphene , 2008, Science.

[42]  J. Greer,et al.  Strong, lightweight, and recoverable three-dimensional ceramic nanolattices , 2014, Science.

[43]  W Gregory Sawyer,et al.  Super-Compressible Foamlike Carbon Nanotube Films , 2005, Science.