It is of critical importance to improve toughness, strength, and wear-resistance together for the development of advanced structural materials. Herein, we report on the synthesis of unoxidized graphene/alumina composite materials having enhanced toughness, strength, and wear-resistance by a low-cost and environmentally benign pressure-less-sintering process. The wear resistance of the composites was increased by one order of magnitude even under high normal load condition (25 N) as a result of a tribological effect of graphene along with enhanced fracture toughness (KIC) and flexural strength (sf) of the composites by ∼75% (5.60 MPa m1/2) and ∼25% (430 MPa), respectively, compared with those of pure Al2O3. Furthermore, we found that only a small fraction of ultra-thin graphene (0.25-0.5 vol%, platelet thickness of 2-5 nm) was enough to reinforce the composite. In contrast to unoxidized graphene, graphene oxide (G-O) and reduced graphene oxide (rG-O) showed little or less enhancement of fracture toughness due to the degraded mechanical strength of rG-O and the structural defects of the G-O composites.
CITATION STYLE
Kim, H. J., Lee, S. M., Oh, Y. S., Yang, Y. H., Lim, Y. S., Yoon, D. H., … Ruoff, R. S. (2014). Unoxidized graphene/alumina nanocomposite: Fracture-and wear-resistance effects of graphene on alumina matrix. Scientific Reports, 4. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep05176
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