Crumpled Nanopaper from Graphene Oxide

Xiaofei Ma†‡, Michael R. Zachariah†‡, and Christopher D. Zangmeister*†

^† Material Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, United States

^‡ Department of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, United States

Nano Lett., Article ASAP

DOI: 10.1021/nl203964z

Publication Date (Web): December 20, 2011

Graphene oxide (GO) in aqueous solution was aerosolized and rapidly dried to produce crumpled nanopaper-like sheets. Online size selection and aerosol mass analysis was used to determine the fractal dimension (D) of crumpled GO nanosheets as 2.54 ± 0.04. That is identical to macroscale materials, such as crumpled balls of paper and foil. Thermal reduction of crumpled GO nanosheets did not change D, even after loss of nearly 25% of the nanosheets mass. We demonstrate that D is able to be tuned by altering solvent conditions. A 10% acetone mixture increased D to 2.68 ± 0.02. Calculations of the confinement force show that crumpling of GO nanosheets is driven by the capillary force associated with rapid solvent loss.