Strong and ductile poly(vinyl alcohol)/graphene oxide composite films with a layered structure

We report the preparation of mechanically strong and ductile poly(vinyl alcohol)/graphene oxide (GO) composite films with a layered structure simply by vacuum filtration. The Young’s modulus and tensile yield strength of the composite film containing 3 wt.% GO were measured to be 4.8 GPa and 110 ± 7 MPa, respectively. Furthermore, it is flexible and exhibits a large elongation at break (36 ± 4%). The high mechanical properties of the composite films are mainly due to the homogeneous dispersion and alignment of GO sheets in the polymer matrix and strong interfacial interactions between both components.