Synthesis, characterization and computational simulation of graphene nanoplatelets stabilized in poly(styrene sulfonate) sodium salt

TL;DR

This paper reports the synthesis and characterization of a water-soluble graphene-based nanomaterial stabilized with poly(styrene sulfonate), demonstrating enhanced electrical conductivity and potential for scalable nanostructure fabrication.

Contribution

It introduces a novel hybrid graphene-like material stabilized by PSS, combining experimental synthesis, molecular dynamics simulations, and characterization to advance scalable nanostructure development.

Findings

Successful synthesis of water-soluble GPSS material.

GPSS films exhibit four orders of magnitude higher conductivity.

Molecular dynamics support van der Waals interactions as stabilization mechanism.

Abstract

The production of large area interfaces and the use of scalable methods to build-up designed nanostructures generating advanced functional properties are of high interest for many materials science applications. Nevertheless, large area coverage remains a major problem for pristine graphene and here we present a hybrid, composite graphene-like material soluble in water, which can be exploited in many areas, such as energy storage, electrodes fabrication, selective membranes and biosensing. Graphene oxide (GO) was produced by the traditional Hummers method being further reduced in the presence of poly(styrene sulfonate) sodium salt (PSS), thus creating stable reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanoplateles wrapped by PSS (GPSS). Molecular dynamics simulations were carried out of further clarify the interactions between PSS molecules and rGO nanoplatelets, with calculations supported by FTIR analysis. The intermolecular forces between rGO nanoplatelets and PSS lead to the formation of a hybrid material (GPSS) stabilized by van der Waals forces, allowing the fabrication of high quality layer-by-layer (LbL) films with polyalillamine hydrochloride (PAH). Raman and electrical characterizations corroborated the successful modifications in the electronic structures from GO to GPSS after the chemical treatment, resulting in (PAH/GPSS) LbL films four orders of magnitude more conductive than (PAH/GO).