Ultrastrong bioinspired graphene-based fibers are designed and prepared via synergistic toughening of ionic and covalent bonding. The tensile strength reaches up to 842.6 MPa and is superior to all other reported graphene-based fibers. In addition, its electrical conductivity is as high as 292.4 S cm. This bioinspired synergistic toughening strategy supplies new insight toward the construction of integrated high-performance graphene-based fibers in the near future.

Zhang Yuanyuan    Li Yuchen    Ming Peng    Zhang Qi    Tianxi Liu    江雷     程群峰   

Advanced Materials

2016

Inspired by the relationship between interface interactions and the high performance mechanical properties of nacre, a strong and tough nacre-inspired nanocomposite was demonstrated based on graphene oxide (GO) and polyacrylic acid (PAA) prepared via a vacuum-assisted filtration self-assembly process. The abundant hydrogen bonding between GO and PAA results in both high strength and toughness of the bioinspired nanocomposites, which are 2 and 3.3 times higher than that of pure reduced GO film, respectively. In addition, the effect of environmental relative humidity on the mechanical properties of bioinspired nanocomposites is also investigated, and is consistent with previous theoretical predictions. Moreover, this nacre-inspired nanocomposite also displays high electrical conductivity of 108.9 S cm. These excellent physical properties allow this type of nacre-inspired nanocomposite to be used in many applications, such as flexible electrodes, aerospace applications, and artificial muscles etc. This nacre-inspired strategy also opens an avenue for constructing integrated high performance graphene-based nanocomposites in the near future.

Wan Sijie    Hu Han    Peng Jingsong    Li Yuchen    Fan Yuzun    江雷     程群峰   

Nanoscale

2016

Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) has been widely used as a model organism for biomedical research due to its sufficient homology with human at molecular or genomic level. In this work, we describe a microfluidic device not only to investigate the response of C. elegans including lifespan and oxidative stress, but also to evaluate the protective effect of polydatin induced by high-glucose condition. It was found that the mean lifespan of worms was significantly reduced and the oxidative stress protein GST-4 was increased in worms that are subjected to high glucose. However, a certain dose of polydatin could weaken the increased oxidative stress induced by high-glucose and extend the lifespan, indicating the protective effect of polydatin against the toxic of high-glucose. The established approach is simple to operate, easy for realtime imaging and multiparatemer evaluations in parallel, providing a potential platform for drug evaluation/screening in a high throughput format at single animal resolution.

Zhu Guoli    Yin Fangchao    Wang Li    Zhang Min    江雷     秦建华   

Chinese Journal of Chromatography (Se Pu)

2016

Superwettability of substrates has had a profound influence on the production of novel and advanced colloidal assemblies in recent decades owing to its effect on the spreading area, evaporation rate, and the resultant assembly structure. In this paper, we investigated in detail the influence of the superwettability of a transfer/template substrate on the colloidal assembly from a hybrid top-down/bottom-up strategy. By taking advantage of a superhydrophilic flat transfer substrate and a superhydrophobic groove-structured silicon template, the patterned colloidal microsphere assembly was formed including linear and mesh-, cyclic-, and multistopband assembly arrays of microspheres, and the optic-waveguide of a circular colloidal structure was demonstrated. We believed this liquid top-down/bottom-up strategy would open an efficient avenue for assembling/integrating microspheres building blocks into device applications in a low-cost manner.

Wang Yuezhong    Wei Cong    Cong Hailin    Qiang Yang    Wu Yuchen    Bin Su    Yongsheng Zhao    Wang Jingxia    江雷    

ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces

2016

3D integrated woven spacer composites with thickened face sheets are fabricated successfully. Static compression and impact behavior are analyzed to evaluate the effect of thickened face sheets. The results show that thickened face sheet is an important influence parameter, warp compression and impact properties have been improved significantly than those of composite without thickened face sheets. Moreover, the damage and failure mechanism is significantly different. The main failure mode under flat compression is an abrupt rigid breakage of core fiber bundles. However, the thickened face sheets reduce the shear stress that transfer to core fibers. For warp compression, there is no face sheets fracture or dislocation, the local shear fracture occurs on the thickened face sheets. In regard to low-velocity impact, the strength of thickened face sheets dominates the failure, the damage is mainly manifested as the penetration of the top and bottom face sheets, matrix cracking, interface debonding, micro-buckling, as well as tearing and breakage of core fibers.

Diansen Li    Jiang Nan    江雷     Zhao Chuang-Qi   

Fibers and Polymers

2016

With its extraordinary properties as the strongest and stiffest material ever measured and the best-known electrical conductor, graphene could have promising applications in many fields, especially in the area of nanocomposites. However, processing graphene-based nanocomposites is very difficult. So far, graphene-based nanocomposites exhibit rather poor properties. Nacre, the gold standard for biomimicry, provides an excellent example and guidelines for assembling two-dimensional nanosheets into high performance nanocomposites. The inspiration from nacre overcomes the bottleneck of traditional approaches for constructing nanocomposites, such as poor dispersion, low loading, and weak interface interactions. This tutorial review summarizes recent research on graphene-based artificial nacre nanocomposites and focuses on the design of interface interactions and synergistic effects for constructing high performance nanocomposites. This tutorial review also focuses on a perspective of the dynamic area of graphene-based nanocomposites, commenting on whether the concept is viable and practical, on what has been achieved to date, and most importantly, what is likely to be achieved in the future.

Zhang Yuanyuan    Gong Shanshan    Zhang Qi    Ming Peng    Wan Sijie    Peng Jingsong    江雷     程群峰   

Chemical Society Reviews

2016

To find a general strategy to realize confinement of the conductive layer for high-performance flexible electrodes, with improved interfacial adhesion and high conductivity, is of important scientific significance. In this work, superwettability-induced confined reaction is used to fabricate high-performance flexible Ag/polymer electrodes, showing significantly improved silver conversion efficiency and interfacial adhesion. The as-prepared flexible electrodes by superhydrophilic polymeric surface under oil are highly conductive with an order of magnitude higher than the Ag/polymer electrodes obtained from original polymeric surface. The high conductivity achieved via superhydrophilic confinement is ascribed to the fact that the superhydrophilic polymeric surface can enhance the reaction rate of silver deposition and reduce the size of silver nanoparticles to achieve the densest packing. This new approach will provide a simple method to fabricate flexible and highly conductive Ag/polymer electrodes with excellent adhesion between the conductive layer and the substrate, and can be extended to other metal/polymeric electrodes or alloy/polymeric electrodes.

Xiong Weiwei    Hongliang Liu    Zhou Yahong    Ding Yi    Xiqi Zhang    江雷    

ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces

2016

A novel biomimetic voltage-gated chloride nanochannel is described. This artificial nanochannel can realize reversible switching between the "on" and "off" states upon addition and removal of Cl and can realize the selective and directional transport of Cl driven by voltage. Moreover, it also has high sensitivity, good selectivity, responsive switchability, and good stability.

Liu Qian    Wen Liping    Xiao Kai    Lu Heng    Zhen Zhang    Xie Ganhua    Xiangyu Kong    Zhishan Bo    江雷    

Advanced Materials

2016

Recently developed slippery liquid-infused surfaces (LIS) offer a new approach to construct anti-wetting surfaces due to their excellent repellence of various liquids. However, previous studies about LIS are mainly performed at room temperature or low temperature and the LIS with stable anti-wetting at high temperatures are rare. Here we report a facile method to prepare LIS with high-temperature resistance. We directly employed chemically etched stainless steel (CESS) as the substrate structure, which can be applicable to objects regardless of their shapes and sizes. By choosing silicone oil to infuse the silanized CESS, a slippery surface with a very low sliding angle (ca. 2°) was formed, and the successful preparation can be achieved even when the silanized CESS was annealed at a temperature of 600 °C. The as-prepared LIS showed excellent anti-wetting for both room-temperature water and hot water at high temperatures. On the basis of stable LIS with high-temperature resistance, we investigated the influence of temperature on the droplet movement on LIS, and found that there were three movement states for both the sliding and impacting of water droplets on LIS with increasing temperature. We envision that our proposed approach can broaden the applications of LIS in engines, medical instruments, and daily life.

Zhang Pengfei    Huawei Chen    Zhang Liwen    Zhang Yi    张德远    江雷    

Journal of Materials Chemistry A

2016

A 3D needle-punched C/C composite with a high density was fabricated and its bend properties were investigated at room and high temperatures. Macro-fracture and SEM micrographs were examined to understand the deformation and failure mechanism. Results show that the load-deflection curves below 400℃ exhibit a linear elastic and brittle fracture failure, while the curves at temperatures above 500℃ show an obvious tough and plastic failure. The bend strength and modulus decrease significantly with increasing temperature due to severe carbon oxidation. Below 500℃, the main damage to the composite is in the form of matrix cracking, 90° fiber/matrix debonding, local twisting and fracture of the 0° fibers. Above 500℃, the oxidation of the composite is significant and the interfacial adhesion between fibers and matrix is decreased significantly.

Diansen Li    Yao Qian-qian    Jiang Nan    江雷    

Xinxing Tan Cailiao/New Carbon Materials

2016