Preparation and sensing performance of superhydrophobic reduced graphene oxide/polyurethane composite sponge

Abstract

The foaming agent alkyl polyglucoside was added into graphene oxide dispersion to generate graphene oxide microbubble agglomerates, which were then combined with polyurethane sponge skeleton through impregnating, the as-obtained composite sponge was rapidly frozen in liquid nitrogen and reduced by hydrazine vapor to form the reduced graphene oxide/polyurethane composite sponge with special three-dimensional hierarchical porous structure as well as superhydrophobicity and flexible piezoresistive sensing performance. The results show that the reduced graphene oxide/polyurethane composite sponge-based flexible stress-strain sensor has a sensitivity of up to 3.8(gauge factor, GF), a response time as low as 45 ms. In addition, reduced graphene oxide/polyurethane composite sponge has good superhydrophobicity with water contact angle(WCA) up to 152.5°, which has potential application in the complex environment such as wet and underwater.

Keywords

• graphene
• three-dimensional porous
• flexible piezoresistive sensing material
• superhydrophobic