Wet-spinning of multifunctional graphene fibers using graphene oxide liquid crystals

The recent discovery of liquid crystalline (LC) behavior of graphene oxide (GO) dispersions in various organic, and aqueous media brings added control to the assembly of larger structures using the chemical process approach.[1-3] The LC state can be used to direct the ordered assembly of nanocomponents in macroscopic structures via simple methods like wet-spinning. [3] Here, we developed a scaleable fabrication route to produce graphene fibers via a facile continuoes wetspinning methode. We develop solid understanding in the required criteria to correlate processability with LC behavior, aspect ratio and the dispersion concentration to provide a viable platform for spinning of LC GO. We demonstrate a striking result that highlits the importance of GO sheet size and polydispersity in generating wetspinnable LC GO dispersions from very low spinning dope concentrations (as low as 0.075 wt. %). The new knowledge gained through rheological investigations provides a sound explanation as to why continuous spinning of binder-free GO fibers is enabled by the LC behavior at this very low concentration