Fabrication of aramid nanofiber-wrapped graphene fibers by coaxial spinning

Flexible and highly conductive fibers have attracted much attention due to their great potential in the field of wearable electronic devices, but how to achieve high flexibility while ensuring high conductivity remains a challenge. The preparation of polyelectrolyte-wrapped graphene sheath-core fibers by coaxial spinning provides a strategy to meet this challenge. However, the encapsulation of the polymer sheath results in difficulty in the reduction of graphene oxide (GO), insufficient reduction and limitations of sheath mechanical strength cause insignificant performance improvements. Here, aramid nanofiber (ANF) with excellent thermal stability and mechanical properties is selected as advanced coating materials for graphene wires, thereby realizing the reduction of GO by thermal reduction. Benefit from the combination of the excellent intrinsic characteristics of ANF and graphene, the coaxial fibers not only exhibit high conductivity, but also a significant increase in mechanical properties was achieved. In short, the core-sheath graphene fibers wrapped by ANF were successfully prepared by coaxial spinning. And our coaxial fibers are expected to be used in the field of wearable electronics due to their excellent properties of flexibility, high electrical conductivity, and easy to implement mass production. [Display omitted]