Dispersion and assembly of reduced graphene oxide in chiral nematic liquid crystals by charged two-dimensional nanosurfactants

© 2017 Elsevier B.V. In order to construct reduced graphene oxide (RGO) contained 3D ordered chiral architecture and exploit the anisotropic properties of RGO to develop functional soft matter, a brand new nanosurfactant which is two-dimensional charged zirconium phosphate (CZ) nanoplatelet is firstly designed and applied to disperse RGO in liquid phase and ordered soft matter. The rheological behavior analysis shows the RGO suspensions can change from unhomogeneous non-newtonian nanofluids to homogeneous newtonian nanofluids after being exfoliated by CZ nanoplatelets. Absorption spectra indicate that the dispersion stability of RGO in liquid phase can be gradually improved with the increase of CZ content. RGO is effectively dispersed in a type of ordered soft matter (chiral nematic liquid crystals, CNLCs) when the mass ratio between CZ and RGO reaches 8. X-ray diffraction results prove that the interlayer spacing of CNLCs has been reduced with the increase of RGO content. Raman spectra confirm the characteristic bands of CZ-RGO-CNLC composites and the physical coupling among CZ, RGO and CNLC. The ternary CZ-RGO-CNLC composites possess chiral helical configuration and Bragg selective reflection characteristic. The driving electric intensity and the saturated electric intensity of the ternary CZ-RGO-CNLC composites with 0.1 wt% RGO addition can be significantly reduced compared with single-component CNLCs.

Dispersion and assembly of reduced graphene oxide in chiral nematic liquid crystals by charged two-dimensional nanosurfactants Academic Article