Nano Carbon-mesh with Excellent Bonding Performance via Hydro-cage De-shielding Strategy

Carbon nanostructures (e.g., graphene, CNTs, MXenes) offer high strength and conductivity but suffer from severe agglomeration, instability, and complex synthesis, which hinder their scalable assembly into robust carbon networks. Meanwhile, the current methods for constructing nano carbon-mesh (NCM) show enormous limitations, e.g., complex processes and enormous energy consumption, etc., making it difficult to achieve green, low-carbon, and large-scale applications. Here, an efficient NCM preparation method of hydro-cage de-shielding strategy to implement instantaneous carbonization-polymerization was conceptualized. During the initial stage of hot-pressing, cellulose-based film (CF) carbonized into quasi-spherical carbonized polymer dots (CPDs), where the system is containing enormous water, existed hydro-cage shielding effect, which formed a huge barrier between CPDs, preventing CPDs from further polymerization. As the hot-pressing progresses, water continuously evaporated or transformed from the free water state to the bound water state, the hydro-cage shielding effect gradually weakened, the system formed a core of CPDs and further underwent polymerization and growth through its surface functional groups, gradually forming NCM similar to a dragonfly's wing with excellent toughness and load-bearing capacity. As a result, the final NCM-plywood achieved a wet shear strength of 1.24 ± 0.05 MPa under 63°C, exceeding the Class II plywood requirement (≥ 0.7 MPa).