Graphene for tough and electroconductive alumina ceramics

A simple, fast and upscalable method is described to produce graphene/alumina (G/Al2O3) composites by spark plasma sintering (SPS) with a significant improvement on both mechanical and electrical properties of monolithic Al2O3. Graphene oxide (GO) was mixed with Al2O3 using a colloidal method obtaining an excellent dispersion of GO in the alumina matrix. The material was consolidated by SPS that allowed, in one-step, the in situ reduction of the GO during the sintering process. A detailed Raman analysis was found to be very useful to study the orientation of the graphene in the composite and to evaluate and optimise its thermal reduction. Graphene platelets acted as elastic bridges avoiding crack propagation and providing this material with a crack bridging reinforcement mechanism. A very low graphene loading (0.22 wt%) led to a 50% improvement on the mechanical properties of the alumina and to an increase of the electrical conductivity up to eight orders of magnitude.