Ultra-high toughness all graphene fibers derived from synergetic effect of interconnected graphene ribbons and graphene sheets

Here, we report a novel strategy for the synthesis of ultra-high toughness all graphene fibers using highly interconnected graphene ribbons (IGRs) and graphene sheets. Due to their interconnected structure and the synergistic effect of graphene ribbons and sheets, the graphene hybrid fiber shows moderate strength of 223 MPa, higher than those of previously reported graphene fibers without adding any other noncarbonous materials. More importantly, the graphene hybrid fiber exhibits an ultra-high toughness of 30 MJ m−3, much higher than those of graphene fiber (0.7 MJ m−3), previously reported graphene based fibers (<22 MJ m−3) and natural nacre (1.8 MJ m−3). The findings from the present study shed fundamental insight on the design of interconnected ribbon strategy addressing the conflict between strength and toughness in graphene materials.

Graphical abstractDownload high-res image (190KB)Download full-size image