Self-Exfoliation of Flake Graphite for Bioinspired Compositing with Aramid Nanofiber toward Integration of Mechanical and Thermoconductive Properties

Highlights A self-grinding exfoliation strategy that depends on mutual shear friction between flake graphite particles is successfully developed to prepare pristine graphene with largely enhanced yield and productivity. Bioinspired assembly of pristine graphene nanosheets to an interconnected aramid nanofiber network is achieved by a continuous sol-gel-film transformation strategy and generates a flexible yet highly thermoconductive film. Abstract Flexible yet highly thermoconductive materials are essential for the development of next-generation flexible electronic devices. Herein, we report a bioinspired nanostructured film with the integration of large ductility and high thermal conductivity based on self-exfoliated pristine graphene and three-dimensional aramid nanofiber network. A self-grinding strategy to directly exfoliate flake graphite into few-layer and few-defect pristine graphene is successfully developed through mutual shear friction between graphite particles, generating largely enhanced yield and productivity in comparison to normal liquid-based exfoliation strategies, such as ultrasonication, high-shear mixing and ball milling. Inspired by nacre, a new bioinspired layered structural design model containing three-dimensional nanofiber network is proposed and implemented with an interconnected aramid nanofiber network and high-loading graphene nanosheets by a developed continuous assembly strategy of sol–gel-film transformation. It is revealed that the bioinspired film not only exhibits nacre-like ductile deformation behavior by releasing the hidden length of curved aramid nanofibers, but also possesses good thermal transport ability by directionally conducting heat along pristine graphene nanosheets. Graphical abstract