Use of Hydrophobic-Hydrophobic Interactions for Direct Graphene Transfer

TL;DR

This paper introduces a simple, cost-effective wet transfer method for graphene onto UHMWPE membranes using hydrophobic interactions, enabling high-quality, residue-free large-area graphene transfer suitable for detailed polymer studies.

Contribution

The authors developed a novel large-area graphene transfer technique leveraging hydrophobic interactions, eliminating residues and enabling direct observation of polymer morphology.

Findings

Residue-free graphene transfer achieved

Enhanced polymer membrane observation with electron microscopy

Strengthening of UHMWPE membranes by graphene layers

Abstract

A new large-area wet transfer method to transfer graphene directly onto UHMWPE membranes without organic-coating, thermal treatment or other mediated substrate was developed. This method completely avoids the problems of PMMA-residue and possible PMMA coating induced tear-off by harnessing hydrophobic-hydrophobic interactions between graphene and UHMWPE, which is one of most facile and cheapest transfer methods that are currently available, especially for large-area graphene preparation and transfer. Multi-layer sandwich structure composite membrane of graphene and UHMWPE with desired number of layers can also be easily prepared by repeating the transfer method. The most significant applications of this transfer method lie on that it facilitates thin polymer membranes the possibilities to be directly observed with high magnification by electron microscopes, such as SEM and TEM. Thus the crystallization and phase-behavior of polymers including UHMWPE can be investigated with real-time and in-situ morphological observations, even in the presence of their solvent and with the need of thermal treatment. Morphologies and mechanical properties of stretched graphene/UHMWPE layered composite membranes were investigated, and strengthening effect of graphene on one side and both sides was observed.