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Updated: Mar 19, 2026
Synthesis of Graphene Nanofluids with Controllable Flake Size Distributions
Published on: July 17, 2019
Uniform distribution of graphene oxide sheets into a poly-vinylidene fluoride nanoparticle matrix through
Xinxin Sheng1, Delong Xie2, Xinya Zhang3
1Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering, Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland. hua.wu@chem.ethz.ch massimo.morbidelli@chem.ethz.ch and School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, South China University of Technology, 510640, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
Abstract:
A general methodology has been developed for preparing nanocomposites with uniform, random distribution of fillers in polymer matrices, purely based on intense shear-driven aggregation, while avoiding filler aggregation. This procedure is demonstrated for a binary colloid composed of graphene oxide (GO) sheets and poly-vinylidene fluoride (PVDF) nanoparticles (NPs), both negatively charged and stable at rest. On the other hand, the PVDF NPs are shear-active (i.e. aggregation occurs under intensive shear), while the GO sheets are shear-inactive. It is found that when the two suspensions are mixed and the resulting binary colloid is forced to pass through a microchannel (MC) device (at a very high shear rate, G = 1.2 × 10(6) s(-1)), the shear-inactive GO sheets are captured and well distributed inside the PVDF NP clusters or gels. In addition, it is shown that in order to have 100% capture efficiency for the GO sheets, a minimum solid content of the binary colloid is required, which can be identified experimentally as the minimum leading to gelation after passing through the MC only one time.
